Know your PAN Card: The Permanent Account Number (PAN) is an important document issued by the Income Tax Department. The PAN card serves as proof for various purposes and contains numerous details about the cardholder. The significance of the PAN number itself is noteworthy. Have you ever considered what your PAN number signifies or why it includes specific letters? If you haven’t, let’s understand that here.
Know your PAN Card
The most noticeable detail on the PAN card is the name of the cardholder. In the case of an individual, it is the name of the person, in the case of a company, the registered name of the company and in the case of a partnership firm, the name of the firm is mentioned on the PAN card.
- Name of father or mother of the cardholder
This applies in the case of individual cardholders. The name of the father of the cardholder is mentioned below the name of the person. The mother’s name can also be here instead of the father’s.
The date of birth of the cardholder is printed below the father’s name. This detail serves as the date of birth proof of the cardholder. In the case of companies and partnership firms, their date of registration is mentioned in this area.
What is Permanent Account Number?
The PAN card number is unique to every person/entity holding the card and contains certain important information. This number is generated based on the details provided by the entity. PAN is a 10-character alpha-numeric number. Each letter represents information.
First three letters: These three letters are purely alphabetic in nature and contain three letters of the alphabet from A to Z.
Fourth letter: The fourth letter of the PAN indicates the taxpayer category of the entity. The entities and their associated letters are as follows:
- A: Association of Persons (AOP)
- B: Body of Individuals (BOI)
- C: Company
- F: Firm
- G: Government Agency
- H: Hindu Undivided Family (HUF)
- L: Local Authority
- J: Artificial Juridical Person
- P: Individual
- T: Association of Persons for Trust
Fifth letter: The fifth letter is the first character of the surname of the individual. In case of non-individual PAN card holders, the fifth character represents the first character of PAN holder’s name. The next four characters are sequential numbers running from 0001 to 9999.
The last detail on the PAN card is the signature of the person. The PAN card also serves as proof of the signature of the person required for various financial transactions.
The photograph of the cardholder is also present on the bottom right part of the PAN card which makes the card eligible to act as a photo identity proof of the person. In the case of companies and firms, there is no photograph present on the card.
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