Aadhaar and PAN should link them by December 31 for NRI

Non-resident Indians with Aadhaar and PAN should link them by December 31

Indian expats needn’t have the cards, but if they do, they should link them by Tuesday

https://www1.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-FilingGS/Services/LinkAadhaarHome.html

 governmental public notice was issued last week calling for linking an Indian resident’s PAN with his/her Aadhaar card before 2019 ends. An NRI with financial dealings back home is advised to have both an Aadhaar and a PAN card, which means the Indian expat will need to link them too.

The deadline was revised to December 31 from an initial deadline of September 30. The linking was first proposed to be enforced in 2017 but the deadline has been extended several times since then.

As mandated earlier, if one’s PAN is not linked to his/her Aadhaar by then, the account number will be made ‘inoperative’. How exactly the PAN will be made inoperative is yet to be announced. It is clear, however, that since PAN is mandatory for many transactions in India from bank procedures to purchase of land/property, it can adversely affect financial decisions if not done.