Understanding Permanent Account Number (PAN)

Introduction:

PAN is basically Permanent account number issued under the section 139A of the Income tax act, Income tax department under the supervision of CBDT(Central board of direct taxation). It is a series of ten(10) digits unique alphanumeric number. It is issued on the principle of "one person/entity one PAN".
It can be issued to both Indian citizen/ entity as well as foreign citizen/ entity. Therefore, it is not considered as a 'citizenship proof'.

Purpose:

It becomes mandatory for filing ITR( Income tax returns), Tax deduction, to avail any other services offered by the IT department, availing benefits of few of the schemes of Govt. Of India like 'Mudra loan' and in making heavy bank transaction and other monetary dealing specially after Demonetisation. It can be obtained by minors too by quoting their father's/mother's PAN. Hence, It can be said that PAN card is one of the most valid financial identity.

Structure and provisions: (10 digits alphanumeric character) : 'AAAPL1234C'

• First three characters represents the sequence of alphabets like AAA to ZZZ 
• The fourth 4th character tells about the status of the card holder 

1. A — Association of Persons (AOP) 
2. B — Body of Individuals (BOI) 
3. C — Company 
4. F — Firm 
5. G — Government 
6. H — HUF 
7. L — Local Authority 
8. J — Artificial Juridical Person 
9. P — Individual 
10. T — Trust(AOP) 
11. K — Krish (Trust Krish) 

• 5th character represents the last name/ surname of the person in the case of individual (P) 

The last digit is an alphabetic check digit.

PAN has now become(CBIN) common business identification number or Business identification number (BIN) to register in most of the Govt. Departments and organizations.