A CA certificate confirming India levies no inheritance or estate tax

Most countries that an NRI lives in tax estates in some form. An estate tax, an inheritance tax, or a death duty, and their banks and probate authorities are built around that assumption. So when funds arrive from an inheritance abroad, or an inheritance has to be recorded for the local estate, the natural question is: was the death tax in the source country paid, and how much? They ask for evidence the way they would for any other estate.

The difficulty is that India does not fit that mould. There is no Indian inheritance or estate tax to have been paid, which means there is no clearance certificate or receipt from any Indian authority to hand over. The document they are picturing simply does not exist, because the tax it would relate to does not exist.

What bridges the gap is a certificate from a practising chartered accountant that states the Indian legal position plainly: that India levies no inheritance, estate or death tax, and that the inheritance you received was not subject to such a tax. It substitutes a professional's certification of the law for a government receipt the foreign authority expected but India never issues.

The certificate is a short, formal statement of the Indian tax position around the inheritance, written so a foreign reader who does not know Indian law can rely on it. In substance it confirms three things.

First, that India levies no inheritance, estate or death tax : estate duty was abolished in 1985, and no successor tax replaced it. Second, that there is no gift tax of the standalone kind India once had (abolished in 1998), and that an inheritance or a sum received on the death of a person from a relative is not taxable as income in the recipient's hands under Section 56(2)(x). Third, it identifies the specific inheritance it relates to. The deceased, the relationship, and the assets or funds concerned, so it is tied to your situation rather than a generic note about Indian law.

Where the foreign authority is really asking whether the underlying funds are tax-clean, the CA can also confirm that any income earned on, or capital gain from selling, the inherited assets has been dealt with in India, because while the inheritance itself isn't taxed, the income and gains on it are. That is the same tax-clean point the repatriation certificate makes, and the two are often issued together.

A foreign bank cannot easily judge whether an Indian professional's letter is genuine, so the certificate carries the feature that makes it verifiable: a UDIN, the Unique Document Identification Number that ICAI requires its members to generate for attest and certification work. The number is printed on the certificate, and anyone receiving it can enter it on ICAI's public portal to confirm the document was issued by a real, practising chartered accountant and has not been altered.

That single feature is why a CA certificate carries weight where a self-typed declaration would not. The certificate goes out on the CA's own letterhead, with the firm's membership details, and the UDIN lets the foreign authority check it independently rather than having to take it on trust.

The certification reflects the law as it stands. Because the CA is certifying a legal position to a third party who will act on it, the statement is framed carefully, confirming that no inheritance or estate tax exists under Indian law and that the receipt was not taxable, rather than over-promising about the foreign authority's own requirements, which sit outside Indian scope.

This certificate rarely travels alone. When you are actually moving the inherited money out of India, the bank there needs the standard remittance paperwork. A Form 15CB from a chartered accountant and a Form 15CA declaration, and the receiving side abroad may want the no-inheritance-tax confirmation. The two answer different questions: the 15CB certifies the funds are tax-clean and properly remittable under the NRO route; the no-inheritance-tax certificate confirms that the inheritance itself attracted no Indian death tax.

They draw on the same underlying evidence. The death certificate, the will or succession proof, and the records of the assets in the deceased's name, so it is efficient to assemble them together. A CA who is already preparing your 15CB for the remittance is in the natural position to issue the no-inheritance-tax certificate from the same file.

Where the inheritance is being recorded abroad rather than remitted, for an estate filing or a probate registry overseas. The no-inheritance-tax certificate may be needed on its own, without a 15CB. Either way, it is the Indian-side confirmation; the foreign filing itself is handled by you or your adviser in that country.

Karan, an NRI in London, inherited his late mother's fixed deposits and a small share portfolio in India. When he arranged to bring the proceeds to his UK account, his UK bank's compliance team asked him to evidence that no Indian inheritance or estate tax had been charged on the funds before they would credit and record the transfer. A routine ask for them, since the UK has inheritance tax.

There was no Indian receipt to give them, because there is no such Indian tax. His practising chartered accountant issued a certificate on letterhead stating the legal position: that India abolished estate duty in 1985 and levies no inheritance, estate or death tax; that an inheritance received from a relative on death is not taxable as income under Section 56(2)(x); and identifying his mother as the deceased, Karan as her son and heir, and the deposits and shares as the assets concerned. The certificate carried a UDIN, so the UK bank could verify it on ICAI's portal. Because Karan was remitting the money at the same time, the CA prepared it alongside the Form 15CB for the transfer, confirming separately that the interest and dividends earned on the assets after his mother's death had been accounted for. The UK bank, satisfied on both the death-tax point and the source of funds, released and recorded the transfer. The Indian-side certification was the CA's; the UK estate record was Karan's own filing.