I have one dormant foreign bank account, do I report it?
Yes. Schedule FA has no value threshold and no income test: the question is whether you held a foreign asset or signing authority at any point in the year, not whether it did anything. A dormant account with a tiny balance and no interest is reportable on exactly the same footing as a portfolio. People miss this more often than anything else in the schedule, because they reason from tax owing rather than from holding. Nothing turns on the account being inactive, and an inactive account is the easiest kind for a tax administration to see.
I have just moved back to India, does Schedule FA apply now?
Probably, and the assets that catch returning residents are the ones acquired long before the move. The schedule attaches to Indian residence, so the year your residence changes is the year that accounts, securities, property, company interests and trusts held abroad start appearing on your Indian return, whatever their age. Work out the residence position for the year first, because that decides everything else. Then inventory what you hold abroad and who holds it with you, rather than reporting only the assets that happened to produce income.
Do I report a company account abroad that I only sign on?
Signing authority is named in the schedule in its own right, so an account you can operate but do not beneficially own can still be reportable. Directors and finance staff of overseas group companies are the usual case, and they often assume the obligation belongs to the company alone. Separate the two questions when you take your inventory: what you own abroad, and what you can sign for abroad. Both go to the same place on the return, but they are supported by different documents, and the second is the one nobody keeps records of.
My foreign shares paid nothing, is Schedule FA still needed?
Yes. Income is reported elsewhere on the return; the asset schedule is about holding. Shares that paid no dividend, a property that stood empty, an account that earned nothing and a company interest that made no distribution are all reportable because you held them. Reasoning from a nil position is how most gaps arise, and the gap is worse than the underlying tax, because the treatment of an undisclosed foreign asset in Indian tax law is harsher than that of an ordinary understatement. Report the holding, then report whatever income it did or did not produce.
I am not resident in India, do I have to file Schedule FA?
The obligation follows Indian residence, so a non-resident is generally outside it. The difficulty is that residence is decided by the facts of the year rather than by how you think of yourself, and people who have lived abroad for a long time can drift back into residence through days spent in India or a change in where their life is centred. Establish the residence position for the year before concluding that the schedule does not apply, and keep the record that supports it. An assumption of continued non-residence is what produces missed years.
Does a foreign trust my parents set up go in Schedule FA?
Trusts are one of the categories the schedule names, alongside accounts, securities, immovable property and entities, so an interest in a trust abroad is not outside it simply because you did not create it and cannot control it. The work is establishing what your interest actually is, which usually means reading the deed rather than relying on how the family describes the arrangement. A beneficiary who has received nothing still has to answer the question. Ask the trustees for the documents early, because they are rarely to hand when the return is due.
What is the penalty for a late T1135 or a missed FBAR?
Both are penalty regimes attached to the form rather than to any tax, which is why people who owed nothing still face them. The Canadian foreign property statement carries a per-month penalty with much larger amounts for a failure that continues or is made knowingly; the US account report is separate again and pivots on whether the failure was wilful. Relief exists — voluntary disclosure, reasonable cause, taxpayer relief — and it narrows once the authority makes contact. The reporting trigger on the US side is an aggregate balance over $10,000 at any point in the year. See late T1135 penalty relief.
Do I need to report a foreign business I own?
Almost certainly, and on more than one form. Canada requires reporting of foreign affiliates on the T1134; the United States has a family of returns keyed to the entity type and your level of control, and several carry penalties that apply whether or not any tax is owed. These are information returns, so the obligation follows the ownership rather than the profit. See T1134.
