The Income Tax Department has confirmed that, despite suggestions to the contrary in the press, taxpayers who submit challans without a permanent account number (PAN) will nevertheless get credit for their payment. However, the law does require that a PAN be quoted on a return of income.

Each challans is identifiable by a unique Challan Identification Number. The average time taken to allocate a new PAN is down to about 15 working days and, to date, PANs have been allocated to more than 36 million taxpayers. The Income Tax Department has also introduced 'Tatkal' Service for allotment of PAN, allowing PAN applications to be filed on internet and service charges to be paid by credit card.

To ensure that taxes are accurately credited to taxpayers' accounts, the Income Tax Department has decided to enforce implementation of the provisions for mandatory quoting of PAN and TAN on challans from 1st January, 2005. Accordingly, no payment of tax will be received in the banks unless the challan carries the PAN of the taxpayer or TAN of the deductor, as the case may be.

Challan forms No. 280 and 281, with pre-printed PAN/TAN and the name of the taxpayer/deductor is available on the website of the Income Tax Department.

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...back to 16 December 2004


Further information:
Income Tax Department website
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