Income Tax Department Clarifies What NRIs With Inoperative PAN Cards Can Do

The Income Tax Department has addressed concerns by non-resident Indians and overseas citizens of India whose PAN cards have become inoperative after the PAN-Aadhaar linking deadline.

While NRIs and OCIs were exempt from linking their Aadhaar with their PAN cards, several of them raised concerns about their PAN cards becoming inoperative past the June 30 deadline.

The department has mapped the residential status of NRIs if they have filed Income Tax returns in any of the last three years or intimated their residential status to a Jurisdictional Assessing Officer. However, the PANs have been rendered inoperative in the event that any one of the above-mentioned criteria is not met.

"The NRIs whose PANs are inoperative are requested to intimate their residential status to their respective JAO, along with supporting documents, with a request to update their residential status in the PAN database," the department said in a tweet.

Details of the jurisdictional assessing officer can be found on the Income Tax portal.

Another scenario where PAN cards are rendered inoperative is when foreign citizens and OCIs applied for PAN under resident status and have not corrected or updated their status with the Jurisdictional assessing officer or have not filed an ITR in any of the last three assessment years.

These OCIs, or foreign citizens, will need to get their residential status updated with their respective JAO, along with supporting documents.

However, the department clarified that an inoperative PAN is not an inactive PAN.

"One may file the Income Tax Return, irrespective of PAN becoming inoperative," it said.

However, a person with an inoperative PAN card cannot receive pending refunds or interest on such refunds.

Tax deductible at Source and tax collected at source will also have to be deducted at a higher rate for inoperative PANs.