PAN compulsory for mutual fund investors from New Year
Come 2008 and all investors desiring to park their funds in mutual funds will now necessarily have to provide their PAN irrespective of the investment amount. The Finance Ministry has indicated to AMFI that this is effective from 01-Jan-08, certainly not a very pleasant New Year Gift, either for AMFI and the AMC’s, or small time investors who did not have a PAN till now.
AMFI Chairman, A P Kurien was predictably unhappy, saying,
“…Why should only the mutual fund industry be singled out, when it is anyways in the lowest risk category, Secondly, considering that funds accept and pay money only through banks, there is a clear audit trail, so there is no question of unaccounted money coming in…”
Maybe he does have a point but these regulatory requirements(MAPIN, UIN, PAN etc) have been going on for quite some time now.
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