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RELAXATION OF RESIDENCY RULES FOR NRIs & FOREIGN VISITORS

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1. Background Section 6 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’) provides for ascertaining an individual’s residential status based on their stay in India during a financial year. Once a person is classified as a resident, the person’s global income becomes liable to tax in India. On account of the ongoing COVID-19 the pandemic situation, several individuals including NRIs or Foreign nationals who had traveled to India for different reasons have been compelled to stay in India on account of the lockdown announced by various countries including India. In this regard, there were several apprehensions that individuals who are forced to stay in India may exceed the specified days criteria which may lead to change in their non-residential status in India to that of a resident Indian and thereby could trigger taxability of his Global income in India. 2. CBDT Circular To address the concern, the CBDT has issued Circular No 11 2020 dated 8 May 2020 which provides for excluding a sp...

Non-resident Indian (NRI) - Exemption to file Income-tax return in India

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1. Background One of the crucial questions Non-resident Indian ask is whether they are required to file the Income-tax return in India or not.  We have briefly summarized the provisions of India's Tax Regulation for your reference: 2. Regulatory requirement While the answer may differ from facts to facts, generally, they are required to file the Income-tax return as Indian Tax Authorities wish to analyze whether they have shown their returned income correctly or not and whether they have used any means to evade taxes or not.  Hence, filing the tax return by Non-resident Indian is mandatory as required under Sec 139(1) of the Income-tax Act. 3. Exemption However, a specified category of taxpayers has been given a specific exemption from filing the tax return and the same has been discussed below: Sec 115G of the Income-tax Act specifies that it shall not be necessary for Non-resident Indian to furnish return of his income u/s 139(1) if; (a) his total income in...

Force Majeure - All that you must know before invoking

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As every country and their citizens are grappled with the outbreak of dangerous virus ie COVID-19 and most of them are still under lockdown condition.  Even countries such as India with a total population of around 130 billion people are under complete lockdown condition for least 21 days as of now.  Being an unprecedented event in human history, its impact will also largely be unimaginable.      Since the majority of industries except for essential commodities remain closed, each lockdown day could pressurize them as they might not be able to meet the contractual commitment they would be having and hence, they must be thinking about several legal issues to minimize the loss to the maximum extent. One such legal issue is the invocation of a Force Majeure clause. Force majeure clause Force majeure clause is a contractual clause that alters parties' obligations and/or liabilities under a contract when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond their c...

OECD develops database to provide insights on Global profiles of Multinational Enterprises

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1.       Background Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) have been at the forefront of changes in the global economy over the last few decades, as trade and investment barriers have been removed and transportation and communication costs have declined. In a world of global value chains, understanding MNEs – where they are, how they operate, and where they pay taxes – has never been more important. However, surprisingly few official statistics are currently available on individual MNEs. To fill this gap the OECD has begun to develop a new database – the Analytical Database on Individual Multinationals and Affiliates (ADIMA) – using a number of open “big data” sources that can provide new insights on individual MNEs and their global profiles. 2.      What is ADIMA ADIMA has four components: -        Physical Register: Offering a comprehensive view of each MNE and its subsidiaries. -    ...