New Delhi: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that permanent account number or PAN and Aadhaar have been made interchangeable, allowing those who do not have PAN to file income tax returns.
Presenting the first budget of the Modi government in its second term, Sitharaman also said that Aadhaar card for NRIs with Indian passports would be issued after their arrival in India, without waiting for the mandatory 180 days.
The move is aimed at improving tax compliance and ease the process of tax payment for tax payers.
"More than 120 crore Indians now have Aadhaar card, therefore for ease of tax payers I propose to make PAN and Aadhar card interchangeable and allow those who don't have PAN to file returns by simply quoting Aadhaar number and use it wherever they require to use PAN."
To put things simply, a taxpayer who doesn't have a PAN card can now file the income tax returns. In another announcement, the finance minister also said the government would take several measures to promote rental housing and for this it has to amend the existing laws.
At present, it is mandatory to quote PAN number for filing ITR without which the tax cannot be filed. And, this year in April, the government further amended the rule and made linkage of Aadhaar and PAN number mandatory for filing ITR returns.
"Several reforms would be undertaken to promote rental housing. The current rental laws are anarchic, as they do not address lessor-lessee relationship fairly," she said, adding that new tenancy laws would be shared with the states.
For NRIs with Indian passport, the finance minister also made them ease to get Aadhaar without any specific mandatory waiting period. "I propose to consider issuing Aadhaar cards for NRIs with Indian Passports after their arrival in India without waiting for mandatory 180 days," Sitharaman said in her budget speech.
As per the data available with the government, the Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI had generated a total of 123.82 crore Aadhaar to residents of the country as on May 31, 2019 so far.
