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Just 230 million PAN card holders -- over half of the total PAN card holders -- have so far linked their cards with biometric ID Aadhaar, even as the deadline to link the two comes to an end on March 31, 2019. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra said the Income Tax department has so far issued 420 million permanent account numbers (PAN), of which 230 million have been linked with Aadhaar. Supreme Court has made it mandatory that Income Tax returns will be filed with Aadhaar and the last date for linking PAN with Aadhaar is March 31. "By linking with Aadhaar, We will know whether there are any duplicate PAN or not. And there are certain duplicate PANs... If it is not linked, we may cancel the PAN also," Chandra said while addressing an Assocham event. The Supreme Court in September last year had declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid. ALSO READ: Aadhaar-PAN linking mandatory for filing inco...

Income tax (I-T) officials fear 80 per cent of the outstanding tax demand arrears, quantified over Rs 8.4 lakh crore, is unlikely to be recovered. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) plans to adopt a two-pronged strategy to reduce such huge dues. It would focus on optimising disposal in terms of numbers and on maximising disposal of appeals involving high quantum of demand. The CBDT has asked commissioners of I-T (appeals) to dispose of at least 30 per cent of appeals that involve I-T arrear demands of over Rs 10 lakh. It has also directed them to conclude 100 per cent of cases that involve demands of over Rs 50 crore. Arrears of tax demands are demands raised against assessees in the past that have not been paid. The total outstanding arrear demands increased to Rs 10,52,084 crore in April 2017 from Rs 9,29,972 crore in March 2016. Officials indicated 80 per cent of this would be difficult to recover in this fiscal year. The arrears are piling up because of litigation, l...