Unique Transaction Numbers by Jan 10

The government has set a target of January 1,2010,to allot Unique Transaction Numbers,which would be quoted against each transaction where tax is to be deducted or collected at source TDS. The system of allotting Unique Transaction Number UTN is expected to become operational by January 1,2010, minister of state for finance S S Palanimanickam told the Lok Sabha today.

The government decided to assign system generated UTNs to tax payers as many of them such as self-employed do not have permanent account number PAN cards. The government also hopes to track transactions better especially in cases where the PAN is mis-quoted. In many cases the PAN has also been found to be missing and the government plans to shift to the system generated number based on individual details.

The government had earlier decided to make it mandatory to quote UTN in the income tax return to be filed by all assessees who have been allotted the number,from this year.

However,it was decided later to postpone this. The decision to make it compulsory to quote the UTN was taken so as to ensure prompt verification and granting of tax credits to the tax payers. The UTN will be given by depository the National Securities Depository to those whose tax is deducted or collected at source and individual assesses could get the number from deductors. The minister also informed the Parliament that the Centralised Processing Centre CPC being set up at Bengaluru for processing all income tax returns,will start functioning by August end this year.