Union Budget 2019: Aadhaar card enough to file tax returns, PAN not essential

The Finance Ministry has announced that the PAN cards and Aadhaar cards will now be interchangeable. Nirmala Sitharaman has said that it is no more essential that people apply for a PAN card.

The Minister has announced that people can simply quote their aadhaar number to file their tax returns. "Since more than 120 crore Indians now have Aadhar card and therefore for ease of taxpayers I promise to make PAN card and aadhaar card interchangeable," she said.

Sitharaman said that she also said that in order to discourage business payments in cash, a two percent will be levied on their withdrawer if it exceeds one crore.

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India's first full-time woman finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her maiden union budget at 11 am on July 5. Sitharaman reached the Parliament an hour ahead of time with the budget document folded in a red traditional cloth sealed with the government seal. Analysts and the media had predicted that her first budget will be focused on the middle class and the poor and that it will take the SoPs presented in the interim budget by Piyush Goyal in February further. 

Sitharaman has to deal with income tax exemption slabs, unemployment and form a pro-janta budget with the added task of pulling the country out of a five year low. With former Education Minister Prakash Javdekar promising that the government will try its best to spend 6 per cent of the GDP on education and the PM stressing on the youth development and innovation, eyes are on Sitharaman's budget to bring the change.