Who files Form ITR-7?

Yes, and the exemption is the reason. The claim to exemption under the charitable and religious provisions is made on this return, so an exempt trust or institution does not sit outside the filing system. It files in order to make the claim. Treating exemption as an exemption from filing is the misunderstanding that produces most of the late work we see in this area. The claim is also re-tested annually, so the return is where the position is stated afresh each year.

The return is the same one, but foreign contributions bring a separate regulatory regime that sits alongside the tax return rather than inside it. That means two sets of obligations, two sets of records, and two bodies with an interest in the same receipts. Institutions get into difficulty when the tax filing reports foreign contributions the other regime has no record of, or the reverse. We reconcile the two before either is filed, so the institution is telling one story about the same money.

This return covers trusts, institutions and entities claiming exemption under the charitable and religious provisions, so a religious institution making such a claim files here. The practical question is usually not which return but which claim: bodies that combine worship, education and relief of poverty have to be clear about the basis on which exemption is claimed, because the conditions attached to that basis are what get tested. We settle the basis first and file on it consistently from year to year.

Yes, and the distinction matters. Exemption is conditional and re-tested annually, so a condition can fail in a year without this being the wrong return: the filing is still made here, and the claim is either sustained or it is not. Where we think a condition has failed we say so on the face of the filing rather than leaving it to be discovered, and we set out what changed. A position explained at the time is a different conversation from one uncovered later.

Yes. The obligation follows from what the entity is and the claim it makes, not from what came in, so a year with no receipts and no activity still carries a return. There is a positive reason to file it as well: exemption is re-tested each year, and an unbroken run of filings is what shows the conditions being met year after year. A gap in the record is the thing that invites questions about the years on either side of it.

Usually evidence that the exemption claim was actually made and that the institution's position is current, rather than an assurance that it is exempt in principle. Funders and their own advisers are testing whether the money can be applied as intended, and where the contribution comes from abroad a second regime holds its own record of the same receipt. We prepare a short pack from the filed return and those parallel records, so the institution answers an enquiry from documents rather than from correspondence.

They clear a payment out of India. Form 15CA is the remitter's declaration of the payment and the tax withheld on it; Form 15CB is an accountant's certificate on the taxability of the amount, the treaty article relied on and the correct withholding rate. The bank generally will not execute the transfer without them, in the categories where they are required. The work is deciding the rate correctly, because the certificate is the record of that decision. See 15CA and 15CB certification.

Sending your own funds to India is a transfer of capital, not income, so the remittance itself is not taxed. What is taxable is income the money then earns in India — interest, rent, capital gains — under the rules for the account type it sits in. Sending money out of India is the direction that needs certification before the bank will act. See NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts.