Do I still have to file in India if I live in Canada?
Usually yes, if you hold Indian income or Indian assets that produce income. A treaty decides whose claim comes first; it does not merge two filings into one. Indian tax is normally taken at source before any exemption or reduced rate is considered, so the Indian return is the step where that deduction is reconciled against your actual Indian liability. Only once that figure is settled does the Canadian side make sense, because Canada gives credit for Indian tax properly payable rather than for whatever happened to be withheld. Two returns, two timetables, one income.
I sold a flat in India. Where do I report it?
In both countries. The buyer or the bank will normally have deducted Indian tax from the consideration before the money moved, and that deduction is measured against the sale price rather than against your gain, so it routinely exceeds the Indian tax actually due. The Indian return is where the real liability is computed and the difference asked back. The same disposal also belongs on your Canadian return, in Canadian dollars, with the gain measured under Canadian rules, which can produce a different figure. The credit you claim in Canada follows the settled Indian tax, not the withheld amount.
Tax was deducted on my Indian deposit. Can I claim it back?
Often part of it. Deduction at source on Indian interest happens before anyone examines your total Indian income, your available deductions or any treaty rate, so the amount taken can exceed what an Indian return would eventually show as payable. Recovering the excess means filing in India, which many Canadian residents have never done because they assume the deduction closed the matter. Until it is filed, the figure you are carrying into your Canadian return is a withholding rather than a liability, and it is the liability that Canada gives credit for.
Do I need to tell Canada about property I inherited in India?
Inheriting is not itself a taxable event in Canada, but what you now hold and what it earns both matter. Foreign property has to be disclosed annually once your holdings pass the reporting threshold, and rent or interest arising is taxable in Canada from the moment you own the asset, whether or not the money ever leaves India. Inherited holdings are the most commonly missed item in this corridor, because nobody sold anything and no cash arrived. Establishing the date you acquired each asset and a cost base for it is the work to do first.
The Indian and Canadian tax years do not line up. What now?
You map rather than match. The two years do not begin on the same date, so one stream of Indian income sits inside a single Indian year and across two Canadian ones. The credit belongs in the Canadian year holding the income it relates to, supported by the Indian tax attributable to that same slice, which usually means apportioning an Indian assessment rather than lifting a total off it. Keep the working papers. Where the deduction at source and the final Indian assessment fall in different years, the Canadian claim may need amending once the Indian position closes.
I am moving back to India. Do I keep filing in Canada?
That turns on whether your Canadian residence ends and on what you leave behind. If it ends, you have a part-year Canadian return and a departure computation, and after that Canadian filing only for Canadian-source income such as rent. Meanwhile the Indian side begins, and the machinery you used as a Canadian resident runs in reverse: India taxes you as a resident, Canada taxes at source, and the credit moves the other way. The mismatched year ends make the transition year the hardest one to get right, in either direction.
What is TCS on foreign remittance?
Tax collected at source. When a resident individual remits money abroad under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme — or buys an overseas tour package — the bank or seller collects an amount of tax on top and deposits it against your PAN. It is not a cost and it is not a final tax: it appears in your annual tax statement and is set off against the tax on your return, with the excess refunded. The rates and the purposes they attach to have been amended repeatedly, so we confirm them for the remittance year. See LRS limits and TCS.
Do foreign shares, ESOPs and RSUs count as foreign assets in an Indian return?
Yes. Equity held directly, shares acquired under an employee plan once they have vested to you, units in foreign funds, the custodial account they sit in and the foreign bank account that funds it are all disclosable by a resident — separately, with acquisition cost, peak value and income for the year. This is where returning employees of multinational groups most often have a gap, because the plan administrator reports to the employer, not to you. See Schedule FA reporting.
