I-T Dept Does Away With 742,000 Duplicate PAN Cards

The Income Tax (I-T) Department removed more than half of the duplicate PAN (Permanent Account Number) cards that had been detected last fiscal. Of the 1.31 million duplicate cards that were being used by wily individuals to avoid taxes, the department had cancelled about 742,000 cards as of March this year, against around 10,000 PANs cancelled in the previous year, the source said. 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.