11 Lakh PAN have been Deactivated. How to Check if Your Card is still Working or Not.

Are you aware that more than 11 Lakh PANs or Permanent Account Numbers have been either deleted or deactivated?As per rules, it is illegal for an individual to keep multiple PANs. Also,August 31, 2017 is the last date for linking Aadhaar with PAN.

Explaining the rationale behind this, The Government said:"The uniqueness of PAN is achieved by conducting a de-duplication check on all already existing allotted PAN against the data furnished by new applicant.Under the existing system of PAN, only demographic data is captured."

Also Read:Cellular begin Aadhaar-based Verification for existing customers.No Aadhaar? Phone users to lose their numbers.

The government has deactivated over 11 lakh PAN cards, mostly because of duplication.“As on 27 July, 11,44,211 PANs have been identified and deleted or de-activated in cases where multiple PANs were found allotted to one person,”minister of state for finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar informed the Rajya Sabha recently.Moreover, 1,566 PAN cards have been identified as ‘fake’ which were allotted to either non- existent person or in the names of persons with false identities, the Press Trust of India reported.According to the law, it is not legal to have more than one Permanent Account Number (PAN) card.

The facility to delete or de-activate the PAN is available with the Assessing Officer through application software. During 2004 to 2007 also, an exercise for de-duplication of PAN was conducted in the tax department to identify probable duplicate PANs. A penalty of Rs10,000 is liable to be imposed under section 272B of the Income-tax Act, 1961 for having more than one PAN, says incometaxindia.gov.in If a person has been allotted more than one PAN then he should immediately surrender the additional PAN card(s).

To check whether your PAN number is active or deactivated, check out the following steps:

1) Go to the income tax department’s website, incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/

2) On the homepage, under the ‘Services’ tab, click ‘Know your PAN’ (on left side of the webpage).

3) A new page will open. Enter the following detail: name, gender, religion, date of birth, registered mobile number and click ‘Submit’.

4) You will receive a One Time Password on your registered mobile number. Enter the OTP.

5) In the end, you will see the results page showing the status of your PAN card under ‘remarks’ column: active or not active.