PAN Card: What should I do if I have more than one PAN?

Taxpayers in India are required to have a valid Permanent Account Number (PAN) for all financial transitions. It is necessary to track the inflow and outflow of your money. So, a PAN is essential when it comes to paying income tax, receiving tax refunds and while receiving communication from the Income Tax Department. A PAN is a unique 10-digit alphanumeric identifier, issued by the Income Tax Department.

But what happens if you end up with more than one PAN number?

There is a chance of people ending up with more than one PAN because of errors, multiple applications, change of surnames after marriage or even as a consequence of fraudulent intentions.

However, possessing multiple PAN numbers is illegal and can result in financial penalties. Thus, obtaining or possessing more than one PAN may attract a penalty of up to Rs 10,000. Therefore, it is important to avoid more than one PAN.

In such a case that you do possess more than one PAN, you must immediately start the process of cancelling the extra PAN and not face any consequences of law.

To do this, you will have to fill and submit the PAN Change Request application form by mentioning the PAN which you are using currently on top of the form, as per the informational available on the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) website.

All other PAN/s inadvertently allotted to you must mention at Item No. 11 of the form and the corresponding PAN card copy/s should be submitted for cancellation along with the form.

In this way, you can surrender the additional PAN that has been assigned to you.

To ensure that you are not assigned an additional PAN, make sure that you do not apply for a fresh PAN upon moving from one city to another.

Since PAN is a permanent number, it does not change with change of city.