New Delhi: The Government on Thursday extended by four months the deadline for linking PAN with biometric identifier Aadhaar to December 31.
Also, the 'due-date' for filing Income Tax returns and audit reports has been extended by a month to October 31 for all taxpayers who were liable to file their returns by September 30, 2017.
"To facilitate ease of compliance by the taxpayers, CBDT has extended the date (for) ... Linking Aadhaar with PAN till December 31, 2017," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
The deadline for linking PAN with Aadhaar previously was July 31, but it was extended to August 31.
The tax department had on July 31 stated that "unless a finding is made that Aadhaar is constitutionally not valid, tax return filers will need to link their PAN with Aadhaar by August 31, 2017".
Tax filers however were allowed to file their annual income returns by August 5 without linking their Aadhaar with PAN. They were to just quote Aadhaar or acknowledgement number for having applied for Aadhaar.
It had further stated that "income tax returns filed will not be processed should tax filers fail to link Aadhaar and PAN on or before August 31, 2017.
This comes at a time when the government has granted a similar extension for furnishing of Aadhaar for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes.
The Aadhaar matter is before the Supreme Court with next date of hearing posted for November, and the deadline for Aadhaar linking for availing of social sector schemes has been extended till December-end.
However, those categorised as non-resident Indians as per income tax laws, people who are not citizens of India, those above 80 years of age and residents of Assam, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir had been exempt from the requirement.
Incidentally, December 31 is also the deadline for people to link their bank accounts with Aadhaar.
The government yesterday told the Supreme Court that it is extending deadline for quoting Aadhaar in welfare schemes till December 31, deadline of which was September 30.
With PTI Inputs
