Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit alpha-numeric number, issued by the Income Tax Department. Each assessee (e.g., individual, firm, company, etc.) is issued a unique PAN.
PAN enables department to link all transactions of the 'person' with the department. These transactions include tax payments, TDS / TCS credits, returns of income / wealth / gift / FBT, specified transactions, correspondence, etc. PAN, thus, acts as an identifier for the 'person' with the tax department.
- PAN structure is as follows: AAAAA9999A. First five characters are letters, next four are numerals, last is a character letter
- If PAN does not follow the above structure, PAN will be shown as invalid
- The fourth character of the PAN must be one of the following, depending on the type of assessee:
- C - Company
- P - Person
- H - HUF (Hindu Undivided Family)
- F - Firm
- A - Association of Persons (AOP)
- T - AOP (Trust)
- B - Body of Individuals (BOI)
- L - Local Authority
- J - Artificial Judicial Person
- G - Government
- The fifth character of the PAN is the first character of the surname / last name of the person (in case of personal PAN card, the fourth character is "P") or of the name of Entity / Trust / Society / Organisation
Click here for further details on PAN.
