Making Sense of all the fuss around Aadhaar card for return filing

Recently various announcements were made by the government regarding the Aadhaar card which created a lot of apprehensions among the taxpayers. Firstly, quoting of Aadhaar number has been made mandatory in the Income tax return. Secondly, Linking of Aadhaar with PAN has been made compulsory to file Income tax returns. Many people were confused as to why government is insisting on linking on Aadhaar with PAN since PAN number itself was good enough for income tax purposes. All the above steps have been taken by the government to curb tax evasion through the use of multiple PAN cards. Many people have two or more PAN cards, which helps them to evade tax. But if your PAN card is linked to Aadhaar, then you cannot avoid paying taxes. Aadhaar is a more foolproof identity of a citizen as it cannot be duplicated and this will help in ensuring transparency in filing of income tax returns But while implementing these amendments, many people faced problems which created a lot of fuss in the market. Here’s the quick glance at the problems faced by the people along with their solutions:

• It is mandatory to quote the Aadhaar number in the Income Tax return. For those who already possess the Aadhaar card, it will not make any difference but there are still many people who do not possess the Aadhaar card.In that case, they should Apply for the Aadhaar card .The acknowledgement slip of Aadhaar card has 14 digit enrolment number which can be quoted in the Income tax return for filing the return this year. So even if you don’t possess the Aadhaar card, you can still file your return by quoting Aadhaar acknowledgement number called as Aadhaar enrolment id.

   

• It is compulsory to Link Aadhaar with PAN before filing the income tax return. There were lot of issues while linking the Aadhaar with PAN due to name mismatch for instance some have initials before their name in the PAN whereas in Aadhaar card initials are expanded like name in PAN card is R. Manohar Muralitharan whereas in Aadhaar card it is Ramanujan Manohar Muralitharan. Also Aadhaar Card does not recognise the special characters such as D’Souza which is there in PAN.

So in case people are finding it difficult to link Aadhaar with PAN due to name mismatch, they should update their name wherever it is wrong. Following two alternatives available:

1. If the correction is required in the PAN, then it can be done by applying for PAN correction through NSDL website. In application type, select the option of “Changes/Correction in existing PAN Data”. Fill the details and submit it online and send the valid documents. Fee for processing PAN application is Rs.107.00 (93.00 + 15.00% service tax). The complete procedure of online correction in PAN is explained on NSDL website.

 

1. The second option to correct your data is updating the Aadhaar details. You can update the data in Aadhaar either by submitting your request Online or Offline .Updating Aadhaar details is purely free. If you use online mode, then it is mandatory that your mobile number must be linked to Aadhaar Card database. Because UIDAI will send you OTP and sometimes may call you for verification. You can change your name, gender, date of birth, address, mobile number and email id .To know about the process of updating Aadhaar, you need to visit UIDAI Website.

To make the process even simpler, tax department is also planning to introduce an option on the e-filing portal through which taxpayers can choose to link the Aadhaar without changing the name by opting for a One-Time Password (OTP), provided that the year of birth of the person matches in both documents.