Vipul Sharma
Founder
Vipul founded TrustNRI to help Non-Resident Indians recover the excess TDS that India deducts on their investments — a structural gap most NRIs don't know exists. He works directly with ICAI-registered Chartered Accountants to deliver DTAA-based recovery across 31 countries.
Credentials
- TrustNRI Founder
Expertise
Articles by Vipul Sharma
Your Australian Super Is Excluded From Section 89A. India Can Tax Its Growth Every Year You're Back.
Section 89A lets a returning resident defer Indian tax on a foreign retirement account until the foreign country taxes it, but only for accounts in the three notified countries: the USA, the UK and Canada, under Notification 25/2022 dated 4 April 2022. Australia is not on the list. So you cannot file the Form 10-EE election (Form 40 under the Income-tax Act 2025) for your super, and with no deferral available the ordinary rule takes over: once you are Resident and Ordinarily Resident (ROR), India taxes worldwide income, and the conservative reading is that your super's growth is taxed as it accrues, year by year. The reliable shield is the RNOR window, the first two to three years after you return, when foreign income stays outside Indian tax.
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You're a Coparcener in an Indian HUF and a US Taxpayer. The IRS Has No Box for It.
India treats a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) as a separate taxpayer with its own PAN and return. US tax law has no matching category, and the IRS has never issued guidance classifying an HUF, so for a US citizen or green-card holder the position is genuinely uncertain, not just complicated. Depending on how the HUF is classified it could be a foreign trust (Form 3520, plus Form 3520-A where there is a US owner), a foreign partnership (Form 8865) or a foreign corporation (Form 5471), each with different tax and heavy penalties for a missed form. One thing is clear under every reading: your interest in the HUF is a specified foreign financial asset for Form 8938, and any HUF account you can sign on goes on your FBAR too.
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Divorcing With Indian Assets as an NRI? Whether Your Alimony Is Taxed Turns on One Word: Lump Sum.
The one fact that decides whether your alimony is taxed in India is its form. A one-time lump-sum settlement is a capital receipt and is not taxable; monthly or recurring alimony is income, taxable at your slab rate. For an NRI three more layers sit on top: recurring alimony from India attracts Section 195 TDS with no threshold, an asset moved in the settlement is taxed differently depending on whether it changes hands before or after the decree, and the US does not tax alimony under agreements signed after 2018, so the same payment India taxes can go untaxed abroad. Here is how each piece works, and why the form of the settlement is worth planning.
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You Inherited Your Mother's Gold and Sold It in India. Here's the Tax, Even Without a Bill.
Inheriting gold or jewellery in India costs you no tax; India has no inheritance tax. The tax arrives when you sell it, as capital gains. If the holding period, counting the years your parent held it too, is over 24 months, the gain is long-term and taxed at a flat 12.5% with no indexation. The part that trips families up is proving a cost when there is no old purchase bill, and the answer is the 1 April 2001 fair-market-value option backed by a registered valuer's report. For an NRI there are three more things to know: no basic-exemption or 1.25 lakh set-off against the gain, TDS under Section 195 rather than the property-style deduction you might expect (with a Form 13 certificate to right-size it), and the NRO route to send the money out.
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Moving Back to India From Singapore? Your CPF Comes Out in Full, and the RNOR Window Decides the Tax.
Give up your Singapore PR or citizenship and leave for good, and you can withdraw your entire CPF balance, your and your employer's contributions plus interest, as a single lump sum that Singapore does not tax. The question that decides your bill is on the Indian side. CPF is not one of the retirement accounts covered by India's Section 89A relief, so there is no deferral to claim; what protects you instead is timing. For the first two to three years after you return you are usually RNOR, and a CPF withdrawal received abroad in that window is outside Indian tax, so it can come out untaxed in both countries. Miss the window and become an ordinary resident first, and India can tax it.
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You Moved Back to India and Kept the Dubai Flat. India Now Taxes That Rent Too.
Most people who move back to India handle their Indian income and forget the flat they kept abroad. But once you become Resident and Ordinarily Resident, India taxes your worldwide income, and that includes the rent from your Dubai, US or UK property. India works the figure out under its own head, Income from House Property, with the 30 percent standard deduction and a deduction for loan interest, so the Indian number rarely matches the foreign one. Where the other country already taxed the rent, a foreign tax credit stops you paying twice; where it did not, as in the Gulf, India simply taxes it. And the RNOR window usually keeps the rent out of Indian tax for your first two to three years back, depending on your day-count history.
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You're an NRI Who Wants to Back an Indian Startup. The Angel Tax Is Gone, but the Repatriable Choice Still Decides Everything.
Yes, an NRI can put money into an Indian startup or a private unlisted company; it is treated as foreign direct investment. The old angel tax, which taxed a company on shares issued above fair value, is now abolished from assessment year 2025-26, so a share issue from 1 April 2024 carries none of it, for every class of investor, non-residents included, and the entry side is far cleaner than it was. The decision that actually shapes your outcome is whether you invest on a repatriable basis, from an NRE or FCNR account, or a non-repatriable basis from an NRO account, because that single choice decides whether you can freely take your exit proceeds back abroad. Here is how the routes, the valuation rule and the exit tax work.
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You're an NRI Consultant Planning to Declare 50% Under 44ADA? You Can't. That Scheme Is Residents-Only.
It is one of the most common NRI-consultant mistakes: planning to bill Indian clients and declare a flat 50% of receipts as income under Section 44ADA, no books, no audit. You cannot. Both presumptive schemes, 44ADA for professionals and 44AD for small business, are written for a resident assessee, and a non-resident is outside them. So as an NRI you compute your actual income, usually on ITR-3, or you use the fee-for-technical-services and no-permanent-establishment treaty analysis that often serves a cross-border consultant better anyway. Here is why the schemes are shut to you and what to do instead.
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Your Indian LIC or Endowment Policy Is Maturing and You're an NRI. Here's Whether It's Taxed, and Why the TDS Looks Wrong.
Your Indian endowment or LIC policy matures, and the payout lands smaller than you expected because the insurer withheld tax. For an NRI that is common, and often reclaimable. The maturity is tax-free under Section 10(10D) on the same terms a resident gets, but that exemption is lost where the premium was too high: over 10% of the sum assured, or, for newer policies, aggregate premium over ₹5 lakh, or over ₹2.5 lakh for a ULIP. Where the payout is taxable, only the gain is taxed, but the TDS trips NRIs up: a resident is deducted 2% under Section 194DA, while a non-resident's payout runs under Section 195 at a much higher rate, which you then claim back by filing an Indian return.
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Which Tax Deductions Can an NRI Actually Claim? The Map, and the Ones That Are Residents-Only.
The question every NRI filer asks is which deductions they can actually take, and the honest answer has two layers. First, most deductions only exist in the old tax regime, and since the new regime is now the default, you have to actively choose the old one to claim them at all. Second, within the old regime an NRI can claim many of the same deductions as a resident, 80C in part, 80D, 80E, 80G, 80TTA, home-loan interest, but a specific set is barred to non-residents: 80TTB, the disability deductions, PPF and similar investments you cannot even open, and, importantly, the Section 87A rebate. Here is the full map, and the regime choice that sits under all of it.
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You're an NRI on the Board of an Indian Company. Your Director's Fee Is Taxed in India, Under Section 195, Not 194J.
If you are a non-resident on the board of an Indian company, your director's fee is Indian income and India taxes it. Two things surprise people. First, the tax treaty usually has a specific directors'-fees article that lets India, as the country where the company sits, tax the fee no matter where in the world you attend the meetings from, so being abroad does not put it out of reach. Second, the withholding is not the Section 194J a resident director gets; a non-resident's fee runs under Section 195 at India's domestic non-resident rate, which is high and often deducted conservatively. The treaty does not lower that rate on a pure director's fee, it confirms India can tax the fee and lets your home country credit it, so the way to cut the cash tied up is a lower-deduction certificate up front and a refund on filing. Here is the salary-versus-fee split, the TDS, and how to reclaim any excess.
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You're an NRI Earning Royalties From India, on a Book, Software or a Patent. Here's the Tax, and the Treaty Rate That Can Halve It.
If you are a non-resident earning royalties from India, on a book from an Indian publisher, software licensed to an Indian company, a patent, a trademark or a franchise, that income is taxable in India when the right is used in India. The domestic rate under Section 115A is 20% plus surcharge and cess, doubled from 10% in 2023. The relief is the treaty: most of India's tax treaties cap royalty at a lower rate, often 10 to 15%, and you get whichever is lower, but only if you give the payer a Tax Residency Certificate and Form 10F. And if your only Indian income is this royalty and tax was withheld, you may not even have to file. Here is how it works.
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