It is a necessary document for every tax payer who pays his taxes in India and the card is a propriety of the Indian Income Tax Department. It is issued through NSDL to any legitimate applicant who applies for it. On special cases, the Income tax department also issues it as it has the power to allot the number without an application. PAN card can be gotten in the form of a PDF file. Thus, a PAN card is a unique identification allotted to all legal bodies recognizable under the Indian Income Tax Act, 1961.
The income tax PAN and its linked card by the Indian Income Tax Department comes under the direction of the Central Board for Direct Taxes (CBDT). This PAN card is also a proof of identification, valid throughout India. PAN cards can also be allotted to foreign nationals as long as they possess a valid visa. This clause makes PAN card a document of identity proof only and not proof of Indian nationality. It is mandatory to have a PAN for filing income tax returns. As stated before, a PAN card has a unique ten-character long code. The first five of the ten characters are uppercase letters, followed by four numerals, and the last character is an Uppercase letter. The first three characters of the code form a sequence of alphabets from AAA to ZZZ (randomly BNX, say). The fourth character recognizes the type of the cardholder. For example, if it’s P, it means an Individual, if its H, it means Hindu Undivided Family etc. The fifth character on the PAN card is the first character of either the surname of the person or of the name of the entity, trust, society, or organization. The tenth character is an alphabetic digit used as a check-sum to confirm the legitimacy of that current cypher.
The following are the few methods to obtain the status of the PAN card. An applicant can call the TIN call centre on 020-27218080 and provide their 15-digit acknowledgement number of the PAN card application. One can also check its status through SMS by sending the 15-digit acknowledgement code to 57575. The SMS response will be received after sometime on the registered mobile number. Other than these methods, Online method for checking the PAN status is very popular. For this, the User has to log on to the NSDL site and select PAN-NEW/CHANGE from drop down menu. There, the 15-digit acknowledgement number of the application has to be entered and once it is submitted, the site will reflect the PAN card status. Another method is to use the date of birth and name in the drop-down menu of the online status checker on the website. Once the details are entered, then the site will return the status of the PAN card.
In case a person, does not have a PAN card, he must submit form 60H in all his bank account, else the bank will charge a larger TDS. Do write us to know more about such facts related to PAN card.
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