Do I have to file a tax return in both India and the UK?
Often, yes. A treaty decides which country may tax a given piece of income, and by how much. It does not merge the two filings into one. If you are resident in one country and have income arising in the other, each tax authority still expects its own return, prepared on its own basis, showing the same income measured its own way. The relief comes afterwards, as a credit or an exemption claimed on the return of the country with the secondary right to tax. Work out residence first, then source, then relief. That order is what stops the same income being paid for twice and argued about later.
How do I split income when the UK and Indian tax years do not match?
The UK runs April to April and India April to March, so the years nearly line up and never quite do. Nothing in either system adjusts for that, so you do the apportionment yourself and keep the working. In practice that means taking payslips, interest statements and rental records month by month, allocating each to the correct Indian year and the correct UK year, and being able to show the same underlying figures behind both returns. Where a credit is claimed, the foreign tax has to be matched to the income it relates to, rather than to the year the payment happened to leave your account.
Why does a payer in India ask me for a residency certificate?
Because a treaty rate is not automatic. Before a payer in India applies a reduced rate instead of the domestic one, it wants evidence that you are resident in the other country and entitled to the treaty, and India also asks for its own declaration of the details behind that certificate. Obtain both before the payment, not after. If the money goes out at the domestic rate, the difference is not lost, but recovering it becomes a refund claim on a return, which takes a filing season and correspondence rather than a document handed over in advance.
I live in the UK and rent out a flat in India — where do I declare it?
In both places. India taxes the rent because the property is there, and your UK return reports your worldwide income because you are resident there, so the same rent appears twice. The relief is a credit on the UK side for Indian tax properly paid on that rent, limited to the UK tax on the same income. Keep the Indian computation, the tax actually paid and the dates, because a credit is only as good as the evidence behind it. Allowable expenses are calculated differently in each system, so the net figures will not agree. That is normal, and it needs explaining rather than forcing.
Can I claim UK tax paid against my Indian tax bill?
If you are resident in India and the UK taxed the income as the source country, then in principle yes: India gives relief for foreign tax on that income, capped at the Indian tax on it. Two things decide whether the claim survives. First, the treaty has to give the UK the primary right to tax that particular income, because a credit for tax the other country should not have charged is the wrong claim. Second, the documentation — the certificate of residence, India's declaration, and proof of the foreign tax paid on the matching income — has to be in place when the return is filed.
Do I need to tell HMRC about my bank accounts and investments in India?
If you are UK resident, your return is not limited to UK income. Indian interest, dividends, rental profit and gains on Indian assets are reportable, and tax already deducted in India does not take them off the return. The common error is treating the Indian withholding as the end of the matter, when it is the start of a credit claim. Your position also depends on the basis on which you are taxed in the UK, which is a question to settle before the first return rather than after it. We work from the Indian statements and the withholding evidence, convert on a consistent basis, and present the gross income and the relief claimed so both returns tell the same story.
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.
How does an NRI prove residence to get the treaty rate?
With a tax residency certificate issued by the country you are resident in, plus Form 10F giving the details the certificate does not carry, plus a PAN in the payer's records. The certificate has to cover the period of the payment, and the payer needs it before paying, not afterwards. Missing any of the three and the deductor is obliged to withhold at the domestic rate, which turns a rate reduction into a refund claim. See TRC against Form 10F.
