A typical PAN is AABPS1205E.
The government has decided to issue biometric PAN (Permanent Account Number) cards to taxpayers across the country to weed out the problem of duplicate and fake ones.
The decision was taken recently by the Union finance ministry and it comes in the wake of a Comptroller and Auditor General report that asked the Income Tax department to ensure that a single tax payer is not issued multiple cards.
The proposed new biometric PAN cards would bear the I-T assessee's fingerprints (two from each hand) and a photograph of the face.
There could be an option to existing PAN card holders to opt for the biometric cards, but it may not be mandatory, a senior official in the I-T department said.
The biometric PAN card was proposed by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in 2006 to counter the problem of duplicate PAN cards which were uncovered during I-T searches and raids by police and other enforcement agencies.
The gap between PAN holders and the number of returns filed was 617.1 lakh (61.7 million), the CAG has said.
The (I-T) department needs to put in place appropriate controls to weed out the duplicate PANs and also update the position in respect of deceased assessees," the report has said.
While PAN is a 10-digit alphanumeric number allotted by the I-T department to taxpayers, biometrics uses biological method to identify physical features of an individual.
Source: http://www.rediff.com/business
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