New Delhi: Brace yourself! Your PAN cards may stand cancelled if not linked with your Aadhar card within a stipulated time.

Speaking to a business channel, revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said that an individual's PAN card will be cancelled if not linked with their Aadhaar number. While he said the deadline for linking Aadhaar to PAN will be announced shortly, some media reports suggest the deadline has been extended till August 31.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had made an amendment to tax proposals in the Finance Bill for 2017-18 to make Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns. The amendment also provided for the linking of PAN with Aadhaar to check tax evasion through the use of multiple PAN cards.

Actual linking of PAN with Aadhaar can be done subsequently, but any time before 31st August, 2017. — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) July 31, 2017

However, the returns will not be processed until the linkage of Aadhaar with PAN is done. — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) July 31, 2017

Earlier in the day, the government extended the deadline for filing Income Tax Returns (ITRs) till August 5.

This year, the government introduced Section 139AA which made it mandatory to link your Aadhaar to your PAN card in order to file your income tax returns. However, this led to a lot of confusion and technical problems, thereby delaying the filing process.

The last minute inundation and heavy logging on the official website of the e-filing portal of the department led to the extension of five more days for filing the ITRs by taxpayers.

The Income Tax Department has already received over 2 crore returns filed electronically. There are over 25 crore PAN card holders in the country while Aadhaar has been issued to 111 crore people.

Also Read: Deadline for filing income tax returns extended till August 5