I moved countries halfway through vesting, which country taxes my shares?
Both, as a rule, and in proportion. Equity granted for work to be performed over a period is generally treated as earned across that period, so a relocation part-way through the schedule splits a single gain by reference to where you were working while it was being earned. Neither country taxes it all, and neither is content with nothing. The split is computed from the dates of grant and vest and from where you worked in between, which means it is only as good as your record of those months. The harder half is not the arithmetic but the timing, because the two countries rarely tax at the same moment.
My old country withheld on units that vested after I left, can I recover that?
Sometimes in full, more often in part, and the route is a claim in that country rather than a credit in your new one. What usually happens is that the former employer's payroll withholds on the whole amount at vest because its records still show you as a local employee, with no adjustment for the part of the earning period spent elsewhere. That portion was never that country's to tax. The claim is evidenced with the grant documents, the vesting dates and where you were working month by month. Make it in the correct year there, because a credit at home cannot fix an over-withholding abroad and may not be available at all.
How is equity split between two countries when I relocate mid-vest?
By apportioning the award across the period it was earned, normally between grant and vest, using where the work was performed in each part of that period. The usual measure is time: months or working days in one country against the other, applied to the value brought into charge. Two things decide whether the result holds up. The first is the earning period itself, which comes from the award agreement rather than from assumption. The second is a consistent working-location record, because the same apportionment has to be presented to both authorities and a figure that changes between two returns invites both of them to reject it.
My employer's payroll only reports to one country, what do I file?
Everything that country's payroll does not cover, which is usually the larger part of the problem. Payroll systems commonly default to a single jurisdiction because that is what they can process, and that default is not a statement of where the tax belongs. The second country's claim does not disappear because no deduction was taken for it, so the liability arrives as a balance due on a return rather than as small amounts withheld through the year. Expect to file in both, to fund one of them yourself, and to reconcile the payroll reporting against your own apportionment before you do, because the two will differ.
Are restricted units taxed at grant or at vest after a move?
The two countries may not answer that the same way, and the mismatch is the real difficulty rather than either answer on its own. Systems fix their taxing point at different events in the life of an award, so the same units can be brought into charge in one country in one year and in the other in a later one. Where that happens, relief for the first country's tax can fall due in a year the second is no longer taxing anything, and a credit with nothing to set against is worthless. This is why the sequence of the two filings, and the years chosen, matter as much as the apportionment itself.
Do I have to report unvested foreign share awards where I now live?
Possibly, and the obligation is separate from any tax on them. A number of systems require residents to disclose foreign assets and interests once they pass a reporting level, and the penalties there attach to the failure to report rather than to tax being owed, so they catch people who have paid everything correctly. Whether an unvested award is reportable depends on what you actually hold and on the rules of the country you now live in, which is a question to settle in the first year of residence rather than after a later vest draws attention to it. Keep the award agreements; they are the evidence for both questions.
Can an accountant in one country file my return in another?
Yes, where they are authorised to represent you with that tax authority and the filing is done electronically. What matters is not where the adviser sits but whether they can lawfully act for you and are competent in both systems — a return prepared with no knowledge of the other country is where the relief gets missed. We file on both sides, from offices in India, the USA, Canada and the UAE. See how we work.
Do NRIs pay tax on money sent to India?
Sending your own funds to India is a transfer of capital, not income, so the remittance itself is not taxed. What is taxable is income the money then earns in India — interest, rent, capital gains — under the rules for the account type it sits in. Sending money out of India is the direction that needs certification before the bank will act. See NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts.
