No PAN mandatory for deposit or cash transactions above Rs 50,000, you can use Aadhaar

For cash transactions over Rs 50,000, people can use their Aadhaar instead of PAN. Revenue Secretary, Ajay Bhushan Pandey said the Aadhaar number can be mentioned for the cash transactions of more than Rs 50,000 or other purposes, where the use of PAN number is traditionally inevitable. Pandey said on Saturday that banks and other institutions will upgrade their system to accept Aadhaar at all the places where it is mandatory to mention the PAN.

Earlier, Budget 2019 proposed to allow the use of Aadhaar for filing income tax returns in case anyone does not possess PAN. He said, "Today there are 22 crore PAN cards that are linked to Aadhaar and over 120 crore people have the Aadhaar cards. At present, to get a new PAN card, people would need to use their Aadhaar, while now they can use their Aadhaar without worrying about the PAN identity. 

Pandey also said, "You can use your Aadhaar to deposit more than Rs 50,000 in bank accounts, instead of PAN. In order to curb black money in the economy, the government has made it mandatory for people to use their PAN in cash transactions of more than Rs 50,000 in the case of hotel or foreign travel. Apart from this, PAN is also mandatory for purchase of real estate worth more than Rs 10 lakhs.

When asked if the PAN will be terminated in a phased manner, he said this will not happen because people will be having an option of using a Permanent Account Number or Aadhaar. Pandey further added, "The PAN and Aadhaar both will be there in the system as of now, as some people may prefer the use of the Aadhaar while others may find it easier to use PAN.''