379 million and counting: What the sharp increase in PAN enrolment tells us

A sharp jump in the number of individual PAN holders reveals India's demography and underlines new challenges

The Union finance ministry has released a fresh set of data on Permanent Account Numbers (PAN), a unique 10-digit alphanumeric identity, issued to each tax-payer by the Income-Tax Department. A close look at the data reveals many trends that say a lot about India and its demography.
 
At the end of March 2018, the total number of PAN issued to 10 categories of tax-payers was 379 million. Individuals accounted for 97.5 per cent of the allotted PAN or about 369 million. Other categories like association of persons, body of individuals, company, firm, government, Hindu undivided family, artificial juridical person,