India already deducted tax from my salary — will the US tax it again?
The US will bring the same salary into its own computation, because a US person is taxed on income wherever it arises, and then relieve the Indian tax by credit. So it is taxed twice in the arithmetic and, done properly, once in cash. The step people skip is in between. Tax deducted at source in India is a payment on account, not your Indian liability. Your Indian return establishes the liability, and the credit claimed in the US should be measured against that liability, not against whatever your employer happened to deduct.
Which US year does my Indian April to March income belong in?
The US reports on a calendar year and India runs April to March, so one Indian year falls into two US years and no single figure from an Indian document drops straight onto a US return. The income has to be apportioned to the periods it was actually earned in, and the tax has to follow the same split, otherwise the credit sits in a different year from the income it relates to. This is arithmetic rather than judgement, but it has to be done from payslips and statements for each month, not from an annual summary.
Is Indian tax deducted at source creditable on my US return?
Creditable in principle, but the amount deducted is not automatically the amount you can claim. Deduction at source is provisional: it can exceed your actual Indian liability, in which case the excess is refundable in India and is not a foreign tax you ultimately bore, or it can fall short, in which case more is payable there. Either way the credit should follow the settled Indian position. That is why the Indian return is prepared, and ideally assessed, before the US credit is finalised, and why an Indian refund later reopens the US claim.
Should I file my Indian return before my US one?
As a general matter of sequencing, yes, because the US credit depends on the Indian liability and not the other way round. Where the deadlines will not allow it, the US return is filed on the figures then available and revisited once the Indian position is settled, which should be a deliberate decision recorded on the file rather than something discovered two years later. The years do not line up either, so sequencing means matching periods as well as ordering filings: an Indian year settled late affects two US years, not one.
I moved back to India — does the US stop taxing me?
Not on the strength of the move. US taxation follows the person, so citizenship or long-term status keeps the filing obligation alive after you have left, and after Indian tax starts applying to the same income. What changes is on the Indian side, where a transitional residency position applies to people returning after a period abroad and affects how your foreign income is treated there while it lasts. The two systems then run in parallel: an Indian return, a US return, and a credit reconciling them. The transitional window is worth planning around before the flight, not after.
Indian tax deducted was more than my Indian liability — what happens?
You claim the difference back through your Indian return, and the important consequence is on the US side. A credit is for foreign tax you were liable to pay, so tax that comes back to you as a refund is not creditable, even though it was genuinely deducted from your pay or your interest. If a US credit has already been claimed on the gross deduction, it has to be revisited once the refund is known. Keeping the two filings in step is the whole exercise in this corridor, and the refund is the most common thing that knocks them out of step.
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.
