NRIs and FATCA- Do's and Dont's

Fatca has finally become a reality for NRIs resident in the US. The CAs, lawyers, law firms, media all writing and giving lot of information and articles on how it is going to impact the NRIs. Without going into the details of Fatca, it would be sufficient to list out the Dos and Don’ts for NRIs living in USA to help them in understanding the implications of FATCA.

Dos:

·         Disclosure of income earned in India to IRS as per the prevalent schemes in the US

·         Different types of incomes as stated in earlier posts here and here , will either continued to be taxable in both the countries or in one of them depending on the nature of the income.

·         NRIs having income in India should pay tax on it in India and file income tax return in India. At the same time, this income should be disclosed to the US IRS and tax paid on it in the US after taking credit for the tax paid in India.

·         To disclose the world-wide income to IRS.

·         Provide Form W 9 to Indian financial institutions with which any financial account is held. If the Form W 9 is not submitted your account will be closed by the FI.

Don’ts:

·         Do not sell any asset whether real estate or financial held in India.

·         There is no need to surrender either the Green Card or the US citizenship except those who do not want to pay their taxes in respective countries.

·         There is no point in closing the financial accounts now, since the first information flow deadline is already passed. Further, any financial account closed now will not help since the information as on the date of the account closure will be passed on to IRS.

·         The income earned in US is not to be disclosed to Indian tax authorities and is not taxable in India.

·         There is no change in the income tax regulations of USA nor the DTAA between India and USA. 

Please contact ruchira@preyorri.com for all your FATCA related querries.