As many as 20 crore PAN cards or Permanent Account Number issued by the income tax department will be rendered invalid if not linked with UIDAI-issued unique aadhaar number.

The decision to this effect has been taken after the income tax department received reports of its illicit use while taking loans or a credit card. In addition, there are some people who use it as an identity proof in Bhutan and Nepal.

A CBDT official said that it cannot be the case that 20 crore PAN card holders do not have an aadhaar card. In the country, there are as many as 120 crore aadhaar holders and 43 crore PAN card holders. Also, the official said that even in a case when the PAN card holder does not have an Aadhaar, he or she still has over 40 days to get the unique ID card issued.

Notably, once the department of tax cancels or invalidates the PAN, it cannot be used again.

Consequently, it is mandatory to link the PAN with Aadhaar number, failing which the PAN card will be made invalid from September 1, 2019.

At the same time, in the Union Budget 2019, the FM proposed to make Aadhar interchangeable with PAN.

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