Linking your PAN and Aadhaar is essential to ensure a seamless income tax return-filing process and to facilitate investments in mutual funds and stocks. It helps in establishing your identity and enables the tax authorities to track your financial transactions accurately. To link your Aadhaar with your PAN, you can visit the income tax e-filing website.

It's important to note that if you fail to link them by the deadline, you will need to pay a late fee of Rs 1,000 before initiating the linking process. In case you miss the initial deadline, you still have an additional 30 days to make your PAN active again by linking it with Aadhaar and paying a penalty of Rs. 1,000.

Furthermore, there are additional consequences to consider. If you have paid an excessive amount of taxes and are eligible for a refund, the refund will not be issued if your PAN is inoperative.

Additionally, any applicable interest on the refund amount will not be paid for the duration that your PAN remains inactive. Moreover, higher rates will be applied to tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS) if your PAN and Aadhaar are not linked.

If your PAN becomes inoperative, it will prevent you from filing your income tax returns. Moreover, it is essential to link your PAN and Aadhaar as per the regulations set by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to make investments in mutual funds and stocks.

To link your Aadhaar with your PAN, you can visit the income tax e-filing website (incometax.gov.in). Please note that there is a late fee of Rs 1,000 that needs to be paid before initiating the process.

Here is the process of linking your Aadhaar with your PAN

1. Start by checking whether you have already linked your Aadhaar with your PAN. You can do this by visiting the e-filing portal.

2. If the linking process has not been completed, go to the e-filing portal to initiate the linking of your Aadhaar with your PAN.

3. Provide your PAN and Aadhaar details as required. If the linking has already been done, there is no further action needed.

4. In case the linking has not been done, log in to www.incometax.gov.in using your PAN as the user ID.

5. Navigate to the e-file section, then select e-pay tax and choose the option for a new payment.

6. Select the 'income tax' tab and specify the assessment year as 2024-25.

7. Choose the payment type as 'Other receipts (500)' and proceed. You will see a pre-filled amount of Rs 1,000. Click on continue.

8. Select your bank account for payment and follow the instructions to complete the payment.

9. To download the challan, go to e-File, then e-Pay Tax, and click on Payment History.

10. On the e-filing portal's homepage, locate the 'Link Aadhaar' tab in the left-hand side menu.

11.   Enter your PAN and Aadhaar details and validate the information.

12. By following these steps, you can successfully link your Aadhaar with your PAN and complete the process.

The deadline to link Aadhaar with PAN was originally March 31, 2023. However, the income tax department has extended the deadline to June 30. It's worth noting that the deadline has been extended multiple times in the past, but it's not advisable to depend on further extensions.

However, certain individuals are exempted from the requirement of linking Aadhaar with PAN and will not face any consequences for not completing the process.

This category includes individuals residing in specified states, non-residents as per the Act, individuals who are not citizens of India, or individuals who are aged eighty years or more at any time during the previous year.

This information was stated in the circular issued by the income tax department in March 2023.

Also, Read: "Special Bank FDs With Higher Interest Rates Ending Soon".