Does Singapore or India tax my salary first when I work in Singapore?
Employment income is generally taxed first where the work is physically done, so a job performed in Singapore is Singapore's to tax before India considers it. Whether India taxes it at all depends on your residence for the Indian year, which is decided by day counts. If those counts make you Indian-resident, the salary goes on the Indian return as well, and the Singapore tax paid on it is relieved by credit, capped at the Indian tax on the same income. Order matters: residence, then where the work was done, then relief. Reversed, a credit claim arrives before anyone has established that India had a claim at all.
Will my Singapore holding company get treaty benefits on Indian investments?
Not on its certificate of incorporation alone. Treaty benefits for an entity in this corridor depend on eligibility under the treaty's own conditions, and on the company having real substance where it says it is resident — decisions taken there, people there, expenditure there, records that show it. A company whose board papers are signed elsewhere and whose office is a mailing address is the case that gets challenged. Build the file while the facts are being created, not after a payment has been made and the relief has been questioned.
What counts as substance for a Singapore company claiming a treaty benefit?
It is a question of fact rather than of form, so the answer is whatever you can evidence. In practice we look at where board meetings actually happen and who attends them, where the people who take decisions are, whether there are premises and staff, what expenditure is incurred locally, where the accounting records and bank mandates sit, and whether the company does anything beyond holding an asset. None of it can be assembled retrospectively. We build it as a file, show the client which parts are weak, and say plainly what would have to change for the position to hold.
What documents does India want before a payer applies a treaty rate?
A certificate of residence from the other country, and India's own declaration setting out the details behind it. Both need to be with the payer before the payment is made, because the payer's default is the domestic treatment and it will not depart from that on assurance alone. If the money has already gone out at the domestic rate the relief is not lost, but it moves from a document handed over in advance to a claim made on an Indian return, with the wait and the correspondence that go with it.
I am on secondment to Singapore — which country taxes my bonus?
A bonus is usually taxed by reference to the period of work it rewards rather than the month it is paid, so a payment received after a move can still belong to duties performed before it. That is what makes secondment bonuses awkward: the payroll treats them as current pay while both tax authorities want to know what they were for. We get the employer's terms and the performance period in writing, allocate the amount across the periods and countries it relates to, and then work out which return each part belongs on and what relief follows.
Does selling shares in an Indian company from Singapore attract Indian tax?
Start with India's domestic charge, because a treaty can only reduce a charge that already exists. Gains on shares in an Indian company are within India's reach, and whether the treaty limits that depends on its terms for that class of gain and on whether the seller is eligible to invoke it at all. Eligibility is where these cases turn, and it is a documentary question about residence and substance. Settle it before the sale. Afterwards, the buyer has already withheld and you are arguing for money back rather than agreeing a treatment.
Do NRIs have to file an Indian tax return?
If you have Indian-source income above the filing threshold, or you want a refund of tax withheld at source, or you are claiming treaty relief — then yes. Interest, rent, capital gains on Indian shares or property, and TDS deducted at a rate higher than your real liability all commonly force or reward a return. Filing is also how a lower-rate treaty claim and a foreign tax credit get onto the record. See NRI tax return filing.
What are Form 15CA and Form 15CB?
They are the certification pair required before certain remittances leave India. Form 15CA is the remitter's declaration filed online; Form 15CB is the accountant's certificate supporting the tax treatment and the rate applied, including any treaty relief. Which combination you need depends on the nature and size of the payment, and banks will generally not process the remittance without them. See Form 15CA.
