The Cabinet approved the PAN 2.0 Project of the Income Tax Department, under which the existing system will be upgraded completely, the digital backbone will be revamped and PAN will be made as a common business identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies,.
The upgrade for existing PAN holders will be free of cost.The PAN 2.0 project will enable technology-driven transformation of taxpayer registration services with an aim to improve ease of access and service delivery, an official statement said.
The PAN 2.0 project proposes to make PAN as the “single source of truth and data consistency” and with security and optimisation of infrastructure for greater agility, a statement said.
The PAN 2.0 is a e-governance project for re-engineering the business processes of taxpayer registration services through transformation of PAN/TAN services, the statement said.
Under the project, the existing PAN system will be upgraded completely, the IT backbone will be revamped and PAN will be made as a common business identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies.
Apart from the QR-code feature for all new and existing PAN cards, the PAN 2.0 project aims to set up a unified portal along with a “mandatory PAN data vault system” for all entities using PAN data.
Existing users will have the option to upgrade for the PAN 2.0 card. The details about the application process and the timeline are yet to be released by the Income Tax Department.
The QR-code feature on new and old PAN cards will mean an enhanced level of integration of financial transactions with the tax department.
The QR code was introduced in PAN in 2017. The PAN 2.0 project intends to continue with this feature with enhancements, tax officials said.
PAN and TAN
A 10-digit alphanumeric number, PAN, enables the Income Tax Department to link all transactions of a person with the department.
These transactions include tax payments, Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) / Tax Collected at Source (TCS) credits, returns of income, specified transactions.
PAN acts as an identifier for the person with the tax department.
Once PAN is allotted, it remains the same forever. It is mandatory to quote PAN on filing of income tax return.
TAN stands for Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number, which is a 10-digit alphanumeric number issued by the Income Tax Department.
TAN needs to be obtained by all persons responsible for deducting or collecting tax at source.
It is compulsory to quote TAN in TDS/TCS return, any TDS/TCS payment challan, TDS/TCS certificates.