Central Board of Direct Taxes directs banks to obtain and link PAN or Form No 60 in all bank accounts by February 28

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Sunday directed banks to obtain and link PAN or Form No. 60 (where PAN is unavailable) in all bank accounts by 28 February.

The tax department has made it compulsory for central excise duty and service taxpayers to obtain a valid PAN number before they can be migrated to the new goods and services tax (GST) set-up.

Despite the political impasse putting a question mark on the planned rollout of the new tax regime from April 1, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) continues to do the groundwork with April 1 as the target date.

GST will subsume central excise and service tax, and CBEC has initiated the process of migrating these taxpayers to the new regime through an issuance of a provisional registration number.

CBEC has also asked its field offices to launch an awareness campaign and outreach programmes to facilitate migration of all excise and service taxpayers to the GST network by January-end.