Introduction:

A permanent account number (PAN) is a ten-character alphanumeric identifier, issued in the form of a laminated "PAN card", by the Indian Income Tax Department, to any "person" who applies for it or to whom the department allots the number without an application. It can also be obtained in the form of a PDF file.

A PAN is a unique identifier issued to all judicial entities identifiable under the Indian Income Tax Act, 1961. The income tax PAN and its linked card are issued under Section 139A of the Income Tax Act. It is issued by the Indian Income Tax Department under the supervision of the Central Board for Direct Taxes (CBDT) and it also serves as an important proof of identification.

It is also issued to foreign nationals (such as investors) subject to a valid visa, and hence a PAN card is not acceptable as proof of Indian citizenship. A PAN is necessary for filing income tax returns.

The Permanent Account Number (PAN) card is a unique identity, which is very important in any kind of financial transaction. The PAN card has an alphanumeric 10-digit number, which is determined by the Income Tax Department. This process comes under the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). PAN is also important for filing income tax returns.

 You should know why PAN card is important for you. During Aadhaar tax return filing, your Aadhaar must be linked with PAN. According to the Income Tax Department, PAN cards have to be given for cash purchases of bank drafts, pay orders or banker's checks of Rs 50,000 or above in a day. If you have two PAN cards, and you are caught during investigation, then you can be fined up to Rs 10,000. Apart from this, your bank account may be frozen. To avoid this, you will have to submit the second PAN card to the department immediately. There is also a provision for this in section 272B of the Income Tax Act of 1961.

  The process of submitting your PAN is simple. This can be done in different ways. You can access the form to submit the PAN card by visiting the website and clicking on the link “Request for New PAN Card or/and Change or Correction in PAN Data”. Fill the form and return it to any NSDL office.

 STRUCTURE OF PAN

 The pan (or PAN number) is a ten-character long alphanumeric unique identifier.

 The PAN structure is as follows: Fourth character [P — Individual or Person]Example: AAAPZ1234C

• The first five characters are letters (in uppercase by default), followed by four numerals, and the last (tenth) character is a letter.
•  The first three characters of the code are three letters forming a sequence of alphabetical letters from AAA to ZZZ,
•  The fourth character identifies the type of holder of the card. Each holder type is uniquely defined by a letter from the list below:

• The fifth character of the PAN is the first character of either:
  • of the first name, surname or last name of the person, in the case of a "personal" PAN card, where the fourth character is P.
  •  The name of the entity, trust, society, or organization in the case of a company/HUF/firm/AOP/trust/BOI/local authority/artificial judicial person/government, where the fourth character is "C", "H", "F", "A", "T", "B", "L", "J", "G".

•  The last (tenth) character is an alphabetical digit used as a check-sum to verify the validity of that current code.