The government on Thursday extended by four months the deadline for linking Permanent Account Number (PAN) with Aadhaar to December 31. Earlier, the last date for linking PAN to Aadhaar was August 31. The government had made mandatory the linking of the two databases for filing ITRs.

Earlier, the Centre had on Wednesday told the Suprme Court that will extend the deadline to furnish Aadhaar details to avail benefits of various social welfare schemes till December 31.

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.

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.”

Incidentally, December 31 is also the deadline for people to link their bank accounts with Aadhaar. 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 the acknowledgement number for having applied for the ID.

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.” The deadline for linking PAN with Aadhaar previously was July 31 but was extended to August 31.

The deadline for linking PAN with Aadhaar previously was July 31 but was extended to August 31.  The deadline was extended last time on July 31 after complaints from “some taxpayers” that they were unable to log on to the e—filing website of the Income Tax department.