Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit alpha-numeric number, issued by the Income Tax Department. Each assessee (e.g., individual, firm, company, etc.) is issued a unique PAN. PAN enables department to link all transactions of the 'person' with the department. These transactions include tax payments, TDS / TCS credits, returns of income / wealth / gift / FBT, specified transactions, correspondence, etc. PAN, thus, acts as an identifier for the 'person' with the tax department. PAN structure is as follows: AAAAA9999A. First five characters are letters, next four are numerals, last is a character letter
If PAN does not follow the above structure, PAN will be shown as invalid The fourth character of the PAN must be one of the following, depending on the type of assessee:
C - Company
P - Person
H - HUF (Hindu Undivided Family)
F - Firm
A - Association of Persons (AOP)
T - AOP (Trust)
B - Body of Individuals (BOI)
L - Local Authority
J - Artificial Judicial Person
G - Government
The fifth character of the PAN is the first character of the surname / last name of the person (in case of personal PAN card, the fourth character is "P") or of the name of Entity / Trust / Society / Organisation.