The Directorate of Income Tax has previously observed cases where one PAN was allotted to two persons and similarly Directorate of Income-tax (Systems) also noticed some rare cases where more than two persons possess the same PAN. In this matter, the Directorate prepared a policy and issued AIS Instruction No. 82 on June 21, 2013.
AIS Instruction No. 82 clarifies that “The person to whom the PAN has been allotted earlier will be considered as the actual owner of the PAN which will be retained by him and the person who has inadvertently been allotted the same PAN later, will have to surrender the wrongly allocated PAN and get a new PAN”.
However, there have been some complaints reported as a result of the application of the instruction. After that, the instruction was partially revised after considering the complaints raised and with the approval of the competent authority. Now it states that in cases where the same PAN is allotted to two persons:
- If the first person is not filing an Income tax return and the Second Person is filing an ITR then the first person will have to get a new PAN and the second person can continue to use the original PAN.
- If both PAN holders are not filing an Income Tax return then the Existing procedure will be followed i.e. the first holder will continue with the original PAN whereas the second person will have to get a new PAN.
- If both PAN holders filed an Income Tax return for part years then the decision will be made after checking information of pending demands and refunds concerning those returns filed, along with the approval of ADG(System)-1.
The authority also directed field officers and RCCs to handle such cases that are related to the allotment of one PAN to two or more taxpayers according to this instruction following proper analysis of details of the Permanent Account Number (PAN), examination of the audit log of PAN.
