In the world of finance, your name and the PAN details were your identities so far. Going forward, the importance of PAN is likely to diminish significantly. The Government has made it mandatory for citizens to provide their Aadhaar number along with PAN details for new bank accounts and should be quoted for a transaction above Rs 50,000. For the existing account holders, December 31, 2017, will be the deadline to link their Aadhaar number with their bank accounts. Those who would fail to do so will end up making their bank account non-operative.

The rationale behind this move…

To curb money laundering practices, the Government is believed to have taken this decision by amending the Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005. Accounts with a transactional limit of Rs 50,000 can be opened without Aadhaar for now. For the initial year, such accounts will remain operational, but after that, the account holders will have to provide their Aadhaar details or offer their Aadhaar application number, if it’s under process, to keep the account operative.

As reported by The Hindu dated June 16, 2017; the notification about the amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005 was released on June 01, 2017; the amendments weren’t gazetted until June 16, 2017.

Reacting to this news, Mr Girish Vanvari, Partner and Head of Tax at KPMG— India , didn’t seem to be surprised. He said, “See, this doesn’t really matter, because everybody who has a PAN card has to get Aadhaar.” He also added that, “And given that we have till July 1 to apply for Aadhaar to comply with this, it is not an issue whether the notification came out on June 1 or today.” Echoing his views, Mr S.P. Singh—senior director of tax at Deloitte India said, “This is in line with the recent global thinking about putting up mechanisms to ensure there is no income that escapes the tax net.”

You are probably aware, the Government also made it mandatory in the recent past to link PAN and Aadhaar and report the Aadhaar number with the income tax return. Clearly, Aadhaar is becoming the big daddy of PAN.

Opposition parties have severely criticised for implementing new rules in a hurry, at a time when the matter is subjudice. Questioning the Government’s stance on this issue, Mr Sitaram Yechury tweeted, "While the case is still pending before the Supreme Court, what’s the unearthly hurry for this government to force linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar.”

While West Bengal’s CM, Ms Mamata Banerjee tweeted: “There are serious concerns about privacy and security of personal data related to Aadhaar. The govt. must not foist mandatory Aadhaar.” In another tweet, she expressed concern that “The poorest of the poor and the marginalised people will be the worst sufferers if Aadhaar is made mandatory unilaterally.”

PersonalFN is of the view that, the Government must take the right action to ensure that no compromises on the privacy of bank customers. Any data leaks would prove very costly. It would be unfortunate if quoting Aadhaar reveals too much of information about a person to bank authorities. The Government should also clarify if banks fail to protect their database, who will be held responsible for data compromises and what is the compensation that acc

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shilpi552020@yahoo.com Oct 23, 2017 If at all the government wants to link aadhar card with bank accounts, they should do it only for transactions of Rs. 1 lac or more. These days Rs. 1 lac is nothing. Why should the government insist for bank account linked with aadhar. They have already got the same while filing income tax return. In the income tax return they will already know the aadhar number. It is the teacher scolding a student with a stick in the old age even though the student is afraid in even seeing him with his mouthache, etc. The govt is doing exactly this. Initially the aadhar card was meant for subsidy given to the beneficiary. If there is no beneficiary who is getting anything from the government, why should he get an aadhar card or link it with anything? This is childish of the Govt. Even with Pan card the government would know who is transacting money in high denomination. This is just a show from the BJP Government. You are electing a government and you are being scolded by bringing in a new system which is not accepted by the majority. These bureaucrats are supporting because of their job security is in risk !! If they want to do some good to the people, there are thousands of ways. Just speaking with butter words, you are only trying to show that you are doing some good to the people.

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