Income Taxpayers ATTENTION! Departments sets deadline; PAN cards of THESE taxpayers to get deactivated after March 31

There are over 6.9 crore income taxpayers in India. The Income Tax Department has now said that the Permanent Account Number (PAN) card of any taxpayer who is not under the exempt category will get deactivated if the same is not linked with the Aadhaar of the taxpayer. The tax department said that the last date of PAN-Aadhaar linkage is March 31 2023. 

"As per Income-tax Act, 1961, it is mandatory for all PAN holders, who do not fall under the exempt category, to link their PAN with their Aadhaar before 31.3.2023. From 1.04.2023, the unlinked PAN shall become inoperative. What is mandatory, is necessary," said the tax department.

It said that all PAN holders, who do not come under the exempt category as per the department's earlier notification issued in 2017, and have not linked their Aadhaar with PAN yet, are requested to do so immediately. 

The tax department also said that PAN can be linked with a valid Aadhaar on the department's website incometax.gov.in after paying a fee of Rs 1000. It may be noted that the Aadhaar and PAN linkage was free initially but when the deadline got multiple extensions, the tax department first introduced a fee of Rs 500 till June 30 and increased it to Rs 1000 for those linking the IDs by March 31, 2023.

As per Income-tax Act, 1961, it is mandatory for all PAN holders, who do not fall under the exempt category, to link their PAN with Aadhaar before 31.3.2023.

From 1.04.2023, the unlinked PAN shall become inoperative.

What is mandatory, is necessary. pic.twitter.com/WSvXp5YBL2

— Income Tax India (@IncomeTaxIndia) December 3, 2022

If you want to link your PAN with your Aadhaar, first visit the NSDL portal:

Step 1: Payment of fee on NSDL (now Protean) portal under major head (0021) and newly added minor head (500) for AY 2023-24 
Step 2:  Go to the e-Payment for TIN (egov-nsdl.com) to pay the late fee Rs 1000 as the case may be.
Step 3: Click on the Proceed button in non-TDS/TCS category Challan no./ITNS 280.
Step 4: On click of Proceed button challan will be shown which will have major (0021) and minor head (500).
Step 5: Enter the required details (PAN, AY, mode of payment etc).
Step 6: Submit the PAN-Aadhaar link request on e-Filing portal after 4-5 working days of  making fee payment on NSDL (now Protean) portal.
Step 7: Go to e-filing portal incometax.gov.in > Login > On Dashboard, under the Link Aadhaar to PAN option, click Link Aadhaar Or alternatively, click Link Aadhar in personal details section.
Step 8: Enter the PAN and Aadhaar no. and click Validate. 
Step 9: After validating PAN and Aadhar, you will see a pop-up message that “Your payments details are verified”. Click Continue on the pop-up message to submit Aadhaar link request. 
Step 10: Enter the required details and click the Link Aadhaar button.
Step 11: Enter the 6-digit OTP received on mobile no. mentioned in the previous step.
Step 12: Request for link of Aadhaar has been submitted successfully, now you can check the Aadhaar-PAN link status.