I-T Department cancels 7.42 lakh duplicate PAN cards

NEW DELHI: The tax-man has taken a giant leap in combating tax evasion by weeding out more than half of the duplicate PAN (Permanent Account Number) cards that were detected last fiscal.

Of the 13.10 lakh duplicate cards that were being used by wily individuals to avoid taxes, the Income Tax Department has cancelled about 7.42 lakh cards as of March this year, against around 10,000 PANs cancelled in the previous year, said a senior I-T Department official.

Many assesses got duplicate PANs by submitting multiple applications, each giving different particulars.

The department decided to undertake an exercise for de-duplication of PANs to clean the database.

The department still has lakhs of duplicate PANs on its database, though it had fixed a deadline of March 31 to complete the process. Mumbai and Delhi together have one lakh such accounts, the official said.

Finance Ministry sources said maximum number of duplicate cards were detected in Mumbai (1.63 lakh) and Delhi (3.06 lakh), which together have highest number of tax payers and contribute over 40 per cent of total direct tax collections.

They said the Income Tax department could not speed up the process of cancellation of duplicate PANs in small towns due to administrative problems and shortage of staff.