Context
Rule 114B[1] of the Income Tax Rules 1962 lists eighteen high-value transaction categories where the payer must quote PAN — motor vehicles, opening a bank account, cards, immovable property above Rs 10 lakh, and goods or services above Rs 2 lakh among them. Rent to a landlord is not one of the eighteen; the rent-side PAN linkage lives in two other places. Tenants and HR teams therefore satisfy PAN collection through those two parallel rules, not Rule 114B.
The decision tree above resolves the Rule 114B path for its eighteen high-value categories: a payer in any of those categories quotes PAN, or files Form 60 if they have none, or suffers Section 206AA TDS if neither is furnished. The two rent-side PAN rules sit outside this tree. If monthly rent to a single landlord exceeds Rs 50,000, Section 194-IB[6] makes the tenant deduct 2% TDS and deposit it via Form 26QC, which requires the landlord PAN. If aggregate rent for the year crosses Rs 1 lakh, Rule 26C[2] requires the landlord PAN on Form 12BB (renamed Form 124 from 2026-04-01) for HRA. In each rent path the PAN can be the landlord's real PAN or a PAN 2.0 instant e-PAN[5] issued via Aadhaar OTP, which in 2026 is a ten-minute exercise that closes off the no-PAN excuse.
The downstream penalty on the rent side is Section 206AA[3] — where the tenant owes Section 194-IB TDS on rent above Rs 50,000 a month and the landlord PAN is missing, the 2% rate is overridden and TDS is deducted at 20% instead. For salaried tenants a missing landlord PAN also disrupts HRA exemption directly; the employer cannot grant the deduction in Form 16 if the underlying receipt fails PAN verification. The cost of the no-PAN path scales with rent: a tenant paying Rs 60,000 per month with no landlord PAN faces Rs 12,000 monthly TDS under Section 206AA — a Rs 1.44 lakh annual cash-flow hit on top of the disallowed HRA.