: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday presented the Union Budget 2023 and said PAN will be used as common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies.
“For business establishments required to have Permanent Account Number, the PAN will be used as a common identifier for all Digital Systems of specified government agencies,” FM Sitharaman announced.
She said the one stop solution for reconciliation and updating of identity of individuals will also be established.
The move from the Centre is expected to simplify KYC process and make it simple for the Income Tax Department and other government agencies to manage documents of the PAN cardholders.
The move from the Centre is expected to simplify KYC process and make it simple for the Income Tax Department and other government agencies to manage documents of the PAN cardholders.
For quite sometime, the Centre was considering to allow businesses to use Permanent Account Number (PAN) instead of other data as a unique identifier for entering into national single window system to seek different clearances and approvals of the central and state departments.
At present there are over 13 different business IDs like EPFO, ESIC, GSTN, TIN, TAN and PAN, which are being used to apply for various government approvals.
Earlier, Union Commerce And Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said his ministry has already approached the department of revenue on the matter.
“We are moving towards using one of the existing databases as the entry point, which is already available with the government…and most probably that will be the PAN number. So with the PAN, a lot of the basic data about the company, its directors, addresses, and a lot of common data is already available in the PAN database,” Goyal had said.
The national single window system (NSWS) is aimed at reducing duplicity of information submission to different ministries, reduce compliance burden, cut gestation period of projects, and promote ease of starting and doing business.
Till now, 19 states/Union Territories, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Karnataka, and 27 central government departments are already onboarded the system, which was started in September last year and is under beta testing phase.
