The government has deactivated or deleted nearly 11.4 lakh income tax permanent account numbers (PAN) as individuals were found to have more than one PAN. As per the law, an individual can have only one PAN. The government has over the years sought to get rid of duplicate PANs. Consequently, it has chosen to link PAN with Aadhaar.
“Linkage of Aadhaar number into PAN database will allow a robust way of de-duplication as Aadhaar number is based on biometric attributes of fingerprints and iris images. Further, seeding of Aadhaar will allow the income tax department to weed out any undetected duplicate PANs. It will also facilitate resolution of cases of one PAN allotted to multiple persons,” minister of state for finance, Santosh Kumar Gangwar told Parliament.
He also discloses the number of PANs that have been deactivated. The minister said that 1,566 PANs have been identified as “fake.” These were assigned to either non-existent individual or in the names of persons with false identities.
