In a huge relief to taxpayers, the government on Thursday extended by four months the deadline for linking PAN card with the Aadhaar number.
The Income Tax Department announced that taxpayers will have to link PAN card with Aadhaar number by December 31.
The government had said it would not process the income tax returns of taxpayers who have not linked their PAN cards with Aadhaar by August 31.
The decision has come at a time when the Centre has granted a similar extension for the furnishing of Aadhaar for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes.
A bunch of petitions challenging government's decision on making Aadhaar mandatory is expected to come up for hearing in the Supreme Court in November and the extension of the deadline is expected to benefit those who have expressed reservation over linking their PAN cards with the biometric identifier.
Section 139 AA (2) of the Income Tax Act says that every person having PAN as on July 1, 2017, and is eligible to obtain Aadhaar, must intimate his Aadhaar number to the tax authorities.
However, those categorised as non-resident Indians as per the Income Tax laws, people who are not citizens of India, those above 80 years of age and residents of the states of Assam, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir had been exempt from the requirement.
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