Central government has made it mandatory for everyone to link AADHAR Card with PAN card. Failure to do so would amount to a fine of Rs. 1000. It is reported that Central government has collected amount of Rs 4,000 crore in this exercise.
In April 2017, the central government implemented a system to link PAN number with Aadhaar to prevent multiple PAN cards. Until March 2022 there was no charge for the linkage. An estimated 44 crore people had linked their PAN and Aadhaar by then. In April 2022, a deadline was given to do the linkage by the end of March 2023 with a fee of Rs 1000.
Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairman Nitin Gupta said that currently 48 crore people have linked and 13 crore people have not yet linked.
It means that in the last one year, around 4 crore people linked PAN Aadhaar and paid Rs 1000 each. The money collected by the government in this one year is Rs 4,000 crore. 13,000 crores will be collected if 13 crore people are linked, if the fee remains to be 1000 as it is now. But after March 31, there are fears that there might be further increase in this amount.
Outrage over fee collection
There is no provision in the original act or rules to charge for linking. However, the Finance Act, 2021 brought an amendment and added a new section called 234H to the Income Tax Act, 1961. It added that ‘those who do not link PAN-Aadhaar within the deadline set by the government will have to pay the fee at a later date’.
There has been outrage against the central government for collecting a fee of Rs 1000 for linking Pan-Aadhaar. “The linking of PAN and Aadhaar is the right decision, but the central government’s rule, which is going to cut into the pockets of the middle class by imposing such a fine on it, is wrong. The cost of a new PAN card is only Rs 118, but it is unbelievable that the penalty imposed by the government for linking Aadhaar to the same PAN number is ten times more!! Instead, PAN numbers not linked to Aadhaar should be compulsorily deactivated from April 1, 2023, and a new PAN card application system should be implemented. Apart from that, this kind of imposition of penalty is condemnable in such a situation unnecessarily,” Mohan Mudabidare opined.
