PAN a must for new bank accounts

KOLKATA: Furnishing your permanent account number (PAN) — or providing details in Form 60 if you don’t have one — has been mandatory for opening any bank or post office account. It will be applicable for Jan Dhan or any account, irrespective of whether that falls into no-frills category, the income tax department said on Monday.
Meanwhile, banks will submit details of deposits in accounts between April 1 and December 31, 2016.The details of the financial statement, including PAN or Form 60 of the account holders, will have to be submitted by January 31, 2017.
“For those who have not submitted either PAN or Form 60 will have to submit the same by February 28 this year,” said Vikram Sahay, I-T director (intelligence and criminal investigation). “The recent amendments clearly said that there will be no exception, irrespective of the nature of the account,” he added.
In a recent notification, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had asked banks and post offices to collect PAN number of all depositors. The I-T department will then link PANs with the data for cash deposits in bank accounts. “It has been seen that there are accounts where neither PAN nor Form 60 details is provided. There is a chance that these accounts might be misused. Once we get the details of the accounts, we will collate all data related to banking transactions,” said Priyabrata Pramanik, additional director of Income Tax (Intelligence & criminal investigation).
Meanwhile, the department has asked all banks to provide two sets of data — the first will comprise PANs or Form 60s if Rs 2.5 lakh or more had been deposited in any account between November 9 and December 31, 2016. The second set of data will have information of deposits between April 1 and November 8, 2016. “It has already been made mandatory to provide PAN or Form 60 if a person has made a deposit of Rs 50,000 or more at one go. But there could be cases when one has deposited lesser amounts and not quoted those details. Cumulative deposit figures will be handy in such cases to find out if anybody tried to stash money,” said an I-T official.
Claiming that the department already has a mechanism in place to find offenders, Sahay said that the department will also track if anybody did not provide PAN in spite of having one. “In such cases, we have the provision to verify physically,” he added.