Do I pay tax every year on growth inside my retirement plan?
That is what the treaty is there to prevent, and it is the clearest case where it does real work. Without protection, a plan that grows tax-deferred in the country it was built in could be taxed on that growth each year by the country you now live in, purely because it looks like an ordinary investment account there. The treaty preserves the deferral so the plan is taxed when money comes out rather than as it accumulates. Whether it applies to your plan is a question about that specific plan, not about plans in general.
Does the protection cover any retirement account I hold?
No. The plan itself has to qualify under the treaty, and that is decided by what the plan is under the law of the country where it sits, not by what it is called or how it feels to the holder. Employer plans, individual plans and arrangements set up outside a formal scheme can land in different places. If you hold several, test each one separately. People with a long working history in one country and retirement in another are often carrying a mix, and assuming the whole mix is covered because the main plan is covered is the usual error.
Is there an election I need to file to keep the deferral?
In some cases, yes, and that is the part people miss. The protection can depend on a filing or an election being made, sometimes for each year the plan is held, and a plan that would have qualified can end up taxed on its growth because nothing was ever filed. If years have already gone by without it, that is usually fixable, but it is fixed by putting the election on record for the years concerned rather than by starting from the current year and hoping the earlier ones are not examined.
How is a lump-sum withdrawal treated compared with a pension?
Differently, and the difference is worth knowing before you draw anything. Treaties tend to deal with periodic pension payments and with lump sums under different rules, so how a withdrawal is characterised changes both which country may tax it and what the payer withholds at source. The same pot of money can therefore produce a different result depending on how it is taken and over what period. Decide the characterisation before instructing the plan administrator, because the withholding follows the instruction and unwinding it afterwards means a claim rather than a choice.
Can I move my RRSP into an IRA after I emigrate?
Transfers between plans in different countries are a separate question with a separate answer, and the answer is not simply that a transfer is neutral because it would be neutral domestically. Each country characterises the movement of funds in its own way, so a transfer can be a taxable withdrawal in one country and a rollover in the other, with withholding taken in the middle. Get the treatment in both countries in writing before instructing anything. Often the conclusion is to leave the plans where they are and manage them separately.
I cashed out my plan before moving — where do I report it?
Start with when the withdrawal happened relative to your change of residence, because that usually decides which country has the primary claim and which gives credit. Then look at what the payer withheld, since tax taken at source is not the same as the final liability and a return is generally how the difference is settled. The treaty question here is not about protecting deferral — that ended with the withdrawal — but about characterising the payment and avoiding the same money being taxed twice with no credit claimed.
Does dual citizenship affect Social Security benefits?
Entitlement is built on your contribution record and on the rules of the paying system, not on how many passports you hold. What your citizenship and residence do affect is the tax side: which country may tax the benefit under the treaty's pensions or social security article, whether the payer withholds, and whether a totalization agreement joins two contribution records to get you over an eligibility threshold. See totalization agreements.
Does India have a tax treaty with the United States?
Yes. India and the United States have a comprehensive agreement covering residency, business profits, dividends, interest, royalties and fees for technical services, along with relief for the same income taxed in both. Claiming it from the Indian side generally means a residency certificate and Form 10F, and the credit itself is claimed on Form 67. See DTAA relief — India and the United States.
