How to link PAN card to Aadhaar card: Deadline extended to March 31

The deadline to link your Aadhaar card to your PAN card has once again been extended by the income tax department. The new deadline is March 31, 2020.

The reason as to why you need to link your Aadhaar card to your PAN card is that back in 2018 according to a Supreme Court verdict, the validity of Aadhaar is mandatory not only for filing of income tax returns (ITR) but also for Permanent Account Number (PAN) card.

Once the deadline to link PAN and Aadhaar is over, all unlinked PAN cards will be treated as inoperative, which means that any citizen with an inoperative PAN card will not be able to file income tax returns (ITR).

The income tax department has made two methods available for citizens to link their PAN and Aadhaar: Via the Income Tax e-filing website and by sending an SMS. We detail both the ways in detail below:

How to link PAN with Aadhaar via Income Tax website

• Open the Income Tax e-filing website.
• Click on the Link Aadhaar button located in the quick links section of the website.
• Provide your PAN card number, Aadhaar card number and name according to the Aadhaar card on the page.
• Select the option of birth month only mentioned, if your Aadhaar card only mentions your birth month and not the full date of birth.
• check the box asking for your permission to get your Aadhaar details.
• After this, you will be required to fill in a Captcha code, which can be avoided by requesting for an OTP instead.
• Now click the 'Link Aadhaar' button, which will start the linking process.

How to link PAN with Aadhaar via SMS

To link your PAN card to your Aadhaar card via SMS, you can send an SMS stating: UIDPAN<12-digit Aadhaar><10-digit PAN> to 567678 or to 56161.