r2i forum

Hi,



We were in USA since June 2004 till April 2011 on L1 visa. I did not file taxes in India since I did not earn any income in India since the last 7 years. I have filed taxes in USA until year 2010. In Jan 2012 I will file US taxes for year 2011 (jan to april).


I have a few questions.


The only income in India for fy 2010-2011 was thru interest in NRO account which is less than Rs. 50,000 only. Tax was also deducted by my bank.


- Do I need to file taxes this year in India for FY 2010- 2011?
- Do I need to report USA income by filing tax in India?
- I am purchasing a flat in India, but it's still not registered under my name. The flat is under construction. Do we need to report this to Income tax? We will be doing registration only in the next few months.

As per my assumption, per the rule that if your income is less than Rs. 5 lacs we don't need to file taxes in India. Is this correct?



Thanks in advance for your help..

Under Indian tax provisions, NRI is an individual who is an Indian citizen or person of Indian Origin who is not a resident in India.
The residential status in India is determined based on the physical presence of an Individual in India during the tax year, which is from April 1 to March 31. An Individual is considered as a Non-Resident for a particular tax year, if he is physically present in India for less than 60 days in that tax year.
However, when a citizen of India or a person of Indian origin who is outside India visits India in any year, he would be regarded as Non-Resident if his total stay is less than 182 days in the relevant tax year. Person of Indian origin means an Individual who is born in undivided India. Even if either of parents/grandparents of an Individual were born in undivided India, he would be regarded as person of Indian origin.
A Resident Individual can qualify as Not Ordinarily Resident (NOR) for a particular year based on his stay details in the past years (i.e, he should be a non-resident in India in nine out of the ten years preceding the previous years or should have stayed for less than 730 days in seven years preceding the previous years).
Taxability in India is dependent on whether an individual qualifies as a Resident, NOR or Non-Resident.
A Resident is taxable on his global income, while a NOR or Non-Resident is taxable on the income earned or received in India. In the present case, Vasanth is employed with a company in US. He resigns from his present employment and takes up a new employment in India.

Since your income was less than the taxable amount, no need to file the return in India, unless you can and want to claim the refund of TDS.

The return does not need to be filed if the gross income is less than taxable amount and in some other cases. An income of 500k requires a retrun. I think this year they are planning to excuse all those that have only salary income of upto 500k and report all their intt and dividends to the employer.

No need to report usa income as you were an NRI during the period.

Thanks dbs.

Hi,

On the apartment that you are purchasing, there is no need to declare it in your ITR (if you choose to file a return to recover the TDS deducted on your NRO deposits). In the past, it was required to report several high value transactions ( this included transaction in immovable property over Rs 30 Lac) - but this year the ITR forms no longer carry this section and these transactions no longer need to be reported.

Nash