Do I need Form 15CA to send money abroad from India?
If funds are leaving India through a bank, assume yes and work from there. The declaration carries the remitter's view of how the payment should be treated for tax, and the bank will not process the transfer without it, which is the practical enforcement rather than a notice months later. It applies across a wide range of payers: a company settling a foreign supplier invoice, an individual sending out the proceeds of a property sale. The sequencing point that matters is that it is filed before the money moves, so it belongs in the planning for the remittance rather than in the paperwork that follows it.
Which part of Form 15CA do I have to complete?
The parts are keyed to the nature of the payment and, critically, to whether an accountant's certificate is also required for it. That last point is where most remittances stall: the remitter completes a part that assumes no certificate, the bank disagrees, and the transfer sits while the position is argued. Getting it right means deciding two things in order, how the payment is characterised for tax, and whether that characterisation puts it in the category needing a certificate, and only then filling anything in. Done in that order it is usually a short job.
Does the bank file Form 15CA or do I?
You do. It is the remitter's declaration, made in the remitter's name, about the remitter's view of the tax treatment. The bank's role is to require it before releasing the funds, and a bank that has released funds without it has not taken over your obligation. This matters when the payment is routed through an intermediary or made by someone else on your behalf, because the declaration still has to sit with the person whose money and whose payment it is. Decide who the remitter actually is before the form is prepared.
Do I need 15CA to repatriate money from selling a flat?
An individual sending out the proceeds of a sale is squarely inside the rule, since the declaration is not limited to companies paying foreign suppliers. In practice this is one of the harder ones to prepare, because the declaration has to state a treatment for the payment, and the treatment depends on the gain, on the tax already withheld or paid on the sale, and on the source of every rupee being sent. Assemble that before approaching the bank. A remittance instruction given first and the analysis done second is how these get stuck.
Does a company need a new 15CA for every supplier payment?
The declaration attaches to the remittance, so recurring payments generate recurring declarations rather than one standing approval. What can be done once is the analysis: for a supplier relationship that does not change, the characterisation of the payment, the basis relied on and the evidence supporting it all stay the same, and each remittance then becomes a short exercise against a settled position. Companies that treat every payment as a fresh puzzle spend much more time on this than they need to, and are the ones most likely to end up with two payments to the same supplier declared on different bases.
Do I still file if the payment is not taxable in India?
Yes. A non-taxable payment still needs a declaration saying so. The form is how the remitter states the treatment, and a nil or exempt treatment is a treatment. This surprises people who reason that no tax means no filing, and it is the same misreading that produces unfiled years elsewhere: the obligation attaches to the payment and the declaration, not to the tax. If anything, the non-taxable cases deserve more care, because the reason the payment is outside charge is the thing you may later be asked to evidence.
Can an NRI claim back TDS deducted on Indian income?
Yes, by filing an Indian return for the year. Withholding on rent, interest, dividends, professional fees or a property sale is an advance payment, not a final tax, so where the actual liability is lower — because of the treaty, because of the basic exemption, or because the deduction was computed on gross proceeds rather than gain — the excess comes back as a refund. It needs your PAN, a validated Indian bank account and the deductor's statement filed. See Indian filing and credit claims.
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.
