The Income Tax Department of India has made mandatory for all Permanent Account Number (PAN) holders to link their PAN Aadhaar on or before 30th June 2023. However, Non-Resident Indian (NRI), non-Indian citizens (Person of Indian Origin (PIO) or Overseas Citizens of India (OCI)), super senior citizens (80+ years) were not required to link the PAN with Aadhaar.
And, from July 1, the PAN that was not linked it with Aadhaar was made Inoperative. Unfortunately, PAN of NRIs and PIOs (Non-Indian citizens) were also made inoperative even if they were not required to link it with Aadhaar. Inoperative PAN means the income tax return cannot be filed, refund cannot be issued and application for lower deduction cannot be made. Also, investments in equity, bonds, and other securities cannot be made or redeemed.
This may be because the current non-residential status may not be updated with the Income Tax Department. Also, updating status on income tax portal may not be enough and residential status is to be updated by submitting the PAN update form.
As updating the PAN by submitting change of PAN form is time consuming, IT department is asking the affected NRIs to contact their Jurisdictional Assessing Officer ( JAO) for change of residential and/or citizenship status. Also, an email may be sent to adg1.systems@incometax.gov.in and jd.systems1.1@incometax.gov.in with Taxpayer’s details with color-scanned copy of PAN and copy of documents in support of non-resident status i.e. passport showing period of residence outside.
We have found a practical resolution for NRIs. And, the PAN was made operative in 2 days for one of our clients.
Please follow the steps below:
- Please login with your IT portal with PAN and PW at https://eportal.incometax.gov.in
- Select Grievance click “Submit Grievance”
- Please select the “AO” as relevant department (Selecting other department does not resolve the issue but instructions for sending an email is given)
- Select Category “Others” and Sub category “Others” and click “Continue”
(There is an option for selecting PAN related application and sub category of “Restoration of deleted/deactivated PAN”. As PAN was active but was made inoperative, we selected these category and sub category and it worked).
- Write the following in the comment box;
“I am a non-resident and there is no need to link PAN and Aadhaar. I am filling my income tax return as an NRI since many years and also my status on IT portal is updated as NRI. Still my PAN was made inoperative. Kindly guide us to get this resolved. Thank you.”
- Attachments >> Other Documents (Any documentary evidence to prove non-resident status to be attached).
- Click on Submit
We have followed above steps for our NRI clients whose PAN was Inoperative. We filed the grievance on July 11, 2023 and it was resolved on July 13, 2023 within 2 days.
As the NRI has been filing tax return as non-resident and as the status on the IT portal was non-resident, the issue was solved without uploading any documents. Also, there are certain NRIs for whom the PAN was not made operative in 2 days. It would depend on on the AO.
We hope that following above steps you are also able to make the PAN Operative. Please share your comments and experiences.
Good luck!!!
