Last Name mismatch PAN Card/PAN Master

SOLVED. Here is a solution that will work - guaranteed 100% - because the information came from the good people at the TDS Central Processing Cell. I 

For a government agency, their customer service is world-class. Their eagerness to help was nothing short of remarkable. They took my case seriously and gave me multiple choices to help address the issue. They were polite and professional all the way. They stand as a shining example of what a government agency can do. No calls, by the way. The entire resolution was by email. You can reach them at contactus@tdscpc.gov.in

When it comes to PAN last name mismatches, each problem is unique. But the following approach will fix it.

1. Examine your PAN card. The fifth character of your ten character alphanumeric PAN number is vital. In my case, this is R and it represents the first character of your last name. ****R*****
   
   If your name is Anil Kumar Jain and the fifth character is a J, then, most likely your last name is Jain. If the fifth character is a K, the last name could be Kumar, Kumar Jain, Kumar Jain Anil, or some weird combination. So how do we know what the last name is?
2. You now need another Income Tax document to be sure. Most people would look at their Traces Form 26AS document that lists their tax withholdings for the quarter or year, correct? After all, getting to your Form 26AS record is so easy to do. You can get to the TRACES website from the Income Tax portal or from your bank, which links to the TRACES website. But the TDS CPC folks told me that Form 26AS is an unreliable source to verify the PAN last name.
3. The only sure method is to verify details from Form -16/16A/27D (generated through the TRACES website) issued to you by your employer/deductor. It turns out that the “Name and address of the Employee/Deductee” fields are directly drawn from the PAN Master/Database. The name structure in Form 16/16A/27D is in the following order- First Name, Middle Name and Surname/Last Name. But even this may not fully solve the issue as you can see from my case below.
4. My Form 16A, which I requested from my deductor, showed my name as Rajkamal Rao. My PAN card shows R as the fifth character. I was attempting to register on the TRACES NRI website. Luckily, this website lets you try multiple times without limit, so all you need is patience.
1. From Form 16A, I keyed in “Rao” into the Traces NRI website. It failed.
2. Frustrated, I sent an email back to TDC CPC. They suggested that I key in the full name, Rajkamal Rao, in the last name field. I did and it worked!
5. Conclusion: Rely only on Form 16/16A/27D because this alone contains your PAN name information exactly as it is recorded in the PAN Master. All other documents that show your name (PAN Card, Form 26AS) are not reliable sources.
1. The name structure in Form 16/16A/27D is: First Name, Middle Name and Surname/Last Name.
2. If you still run into issues (see my example in bullet point 4 above), contact the TDC CPC at contactus@tdscpc.gov.in. I promise that you will not be disappointed with the quality of their response.