The government has decided to shelve the introduction of the Unique Transaction Number (UTN), which tax payers need to quote along with Permanent Account 
Number when tax is deducted / collected at source.
The scheme was to have come into force from the new year.
However, the Finance Ministry has not ruled out the possibility of introducing a new identity number like UTN from the next fiscal, in addition to the Permanent Account Number (PAN) to ensure prompt verification and granting of tax credits to tax payers.
“The introduction of UTN, which was scheduled to be implemented from January 2010, has been shelved in all probability. The process of filing tax returns remains the same as earlier,” a senior Finance Ministry official said.
