Is there a minimum value before I report a foreign account in India?
No. The disclosure has no minimum value at all. One overseas account, one foreign share, one signing authority over an account belonging to somebody else, and all of it is reportable in the schedule. That surprises people who expect a threshold, and it is the commonest reason the schedule goes in incomplete. The test is not whether the asset is significant. It is whether the asset exists and you hold the relationship with it that the schedule asks about. A dormant account with a trivial balance is as disclosable as a substantial portfolio.
Do I have to report an account I only sign on for my parents?
Signing authority is one of the relationships the schedule asks about, so an account you do not own but can operate is capable of being disclosable even though the money is not yours. People leave these out precisely because they think of them as somebody else's. The safer approach is to list every foreign account and holding you own, benefit from, or can operate, and then decide the reporting for each, rather than filtering them out before you begin. Omissions here are dealt with under a separate statute, which is why the error is worth avoiding.
Will India find out about my foreign bank account?
Assume so. The schedule is not tested only against what you say about yourself. India receives information about accounts and holdings automatically from foreign institutions, and the disclosure is checked against it. So the realistic question is not whether an omission is visible but when it becomes visible, and what it looks like at that point: an asset India already knows about, missing from a return that had a place to report it. Non-disclosure is dealt with under a separate statute with its own assessment powers, which is a worse conversation than a complete schedule.
What if I forgot to report foreign shares in an Indian return?
Deal with it deliberately rather than quietly. An omission in a past year does not improve with age, and it does not sit under the ordinary rules you might expect, because non-disclosure of foreign assets is dealt with under a separate statute with its own assessment powers. The first step is a complete inventory of what should have been in the schedule, year by year, covering accounts, holdings, interests and any signing authority. Only once that is in front of you is it sensible to decide how the record should be corrected.
Does Schedule FA apply if the foreign asset produced no income?
Yes. The schedule is a disclosure of assets and interests rather than a report of income, so an account that paid nothing and a holding that distributed nothing still belong in it. This is where the two obligations come apart. You can have nothing to add to your taxable income and still have a substantial schedule to complete. Treating the schedule as a by-product of the income pages is what leaves it short, because the income pages contain nothing at all to prompt you about a dormant asset.
Do I report foreign assets in India if I am a non-resident?
The disclosure is aimed at residents, so residence status is the question to settle before you look at the schedule at all, and it is settled on India's own rules rather than on where you feel you live. That makes the year you arrive and the year you leave the ones to examine most carefully, because status can change mid-stream and the obligation follows it. Where residence is established, the schedule applies with no value threshold, so the same inventory work is needed whatever the assets happen to be worth.
Is my Indian provident fund or PPF still tax-free now that I live abroad?
The exemption is an Indian one, and it does not travel. Your new country of residence taxes worldwide income under its own rules, and several — the United States in particular — may treat the annual growth in a foreign retirement or savings plan as currently taxable and separately reportable, whether or not you withdrew anything. So an account that is genuinely tax-free in India can be a taxable, reportable asset where you now live. See Indian pensions received abroad.
Who is an NRI for tax purposes?
Residence in India is decided by days present in the tax year, with a second limb that also counts days over the preceding four years, and separate rules for Indian citizens leaving for employment. Fall outside the tests and you are non-resident, taxed in India only on Indian-source income. Between full residence and non-residence sits RNOR — resident but not ordinarily resident — which shelters foreign income for a limited window after returning. See RNOR status.
