My tenant in India has never deducted tax on my rent — what now?
Treat it as the tenant's obligation rather than yours, because that is where it sits. Rent paid to a non-resident owner attracts deduction at source, and an individual tenant is caught by the rule in the same way a company is. Most have never deducted tax in their lives and do not know it applies to them. The practical route is to explain the obligation, have the tenant set up as a deductor, and get the deduction remitted against your Indian identifier. Once the remittance shows against your record, the rent is reconciled on your Indian return and credit for the tax deducted is claimed there.
Do I have to file an Indian return if my tenant already deducted tax?
In the ordinary case, yes. The deduction is a payment on account rather than a final settlement, and it is worked out on the rent itself rather than on the taxable figure. The Indian return is where the rent is reported, the standard deduction on house property is taken, interest on money borrowed for the property is relieved, and the tax already deducted is set against the result. Without the return you leave the deduction sitting as a credit nobody has claimed, and you have no record showing that the taxable figure was lower than the rent it was calculated on.
Can I claim interest on my Indian home loan against the rent I receive?
Interest relief on the property is claimed on the Indian return, alongside the standard deduction on house property. That is the point of filing even when the tenant has deducted correctly: deduction at source looks at the rent, while the return looks at what is actually taxable after those reliefs. Keep the lender's interest statement for the Indian tax year and the loan documents showing the borrowing relates to that property. Where a property is jointly owned and jointly borrowed against, the relief follows the ownership and the borrowing, so the paperwork on both has to say the same thing.
Which country taxes my Indian rent first, India or the country I live in?
The treaty's immovable-property article settles that, and it is written by reference to where the property stands rather than where the owner lives. The order matters in practice because the country with the second claim is the one asked to relieve the tax paid to the first. So the Indian position has to be established, and the deducted tax identified, before the return in your country of residence can be completed properly. Doing it the other way round is how people end up claiming relief for an amount that was never remitted against their Indian record, then having to amend both filings.
My tenant is an individual, not a company — does he still have to deduct?
Yes. The obligation attaches to rent paid to a non-resident owner, and it does not depend on the tenant being in business or having ever deducted tax before. This is the single most common cause of trouble on these files: a private tenant pays the full rent across for years, quite honestly, and neither side realises a deduction should have been remitted. It is easier to raise before the tenancy starts than to unpick afterwards, because the tenant carries the exposure for not having deducted while the owner carries an unreconciled Indian filing position.
Too much tax was deducted from my rent — how do I get it back?
Through the Indian return, which is the only place the excess can be established. Deduction at source is calculated on the rent received; the tax actually due is calculated on what is left after the standard deduction on house property and the interest relief. The return reports both figures, sets the deducted tax against the liability, and establishes the excess to be repaid. Two things decide whether it works: the deduction must have been remitted against your Indian identifier rather than someone else's, and the rent reported must match the remittance record. Where they do not match, the mismatch is corrected before the return is filed.
Are US-listed ETFs US-situs property for a non-resident's estate?
Shares issued by a US company are generally US-situs for estate tax purposes, and a fund domiciled in the United States is a US company however global its holdings. A fund domiciled elsewhere that holds the same underlying stocks generally is not. That distinction — the domicile of the wrapper rather than the location of the investments — is why cross-border portfolios get restructured, and it should be confirmed against your own holdings before anything is sold. See US estate tax exposure for Canadians.
What is DTAA?
DTAA — a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement — is India's term for a tax treaty. It allocates taxing rights between India and the other country, caps withholding on cross-border payments, and gives relief for income taxed twice by either exempting it or crediting the foreign tax. Relief is claimed, and from the Indian side that normally means a tax residency certificate, Form 10F and Form 67. See DTAA relief.
