What counts as a day of presence in a country?
It depends on which country is asking. Some systems count any part of a day in which you were physically present, so an arrival at night and a departure the next morning give you two days. Others look at where you were at midnight, and a few disregard days spent purely in transit between two other countries. Because the counting conventions differ, the same trip can produce a different total in each country. This is why a usable record logs actual dates of entry and exit by country rather than a running total. Keep the raw dates and the count can be recalculated under whichever convention applies.
How do I prove the days I spent outside the country?
Presence is proved by an accumulation of dated, independent documents rather than by one authoritative source. Boarding passes and airline itineraries, hotel folios, entry and exit stamps where they exist, card transactions in the place you say you were, payroll and site attendance records, tenancy and utility bills, and a dated diary or calendar all corroborate each other. No single item is decisive; the strength of the record comes from several sources agreeing about the same dates. Where a period has only one source behind it, note that in the record itself so the weak spots are known before anyone else finds them.
Can a day-count record be rebuilt after the tax year ends?
Partly, and rarely well. Airlines, card issuers and hotels hold data for limited periods and their retention windows are shorter than the period in which your filing can be examined. Border records may be obtainable for some countries and not others. What usually survives is enough to establish the shape of the year and not enough to fix the borderline days, which are the ones the whole position turns on. A reconstruction is still worth doing, but it should be presented as what it is, with the gaps identified. The cheap version of this work is a calendar kept as the year happens.
Do travel bookings and expense claims count as proof of presence?
They help, but they prove different things. A booking shows an intention to travel on a date, not that the flight was taken or that the return was not changed at the airport. An expense claim shows that a cost was incurred and approved, sometimes weeks later and sometimes for a trip that moved. Treat both as corroboration sitting behind something closer to the event, such as a boarding pass, a stamp or a transaction made in the place itself. Where booking data is the only evidence for a period, say so rather than letting it carry weight it cannot support.
Why do two countries count the same trip differently?
Because each defines its own unit of counting and its own exclusions. One may count part-days, another whole days; one may ignore transit, another may not; one may measure over a calendar year while the other uses its own fiscal year, so a single trip falls into different periods on each side. Treaty tie-breaker tests then add their own measures, which are about where your home and your centre of interests are rather than arithmetic alone. The practical consequence is that both counts can be correct and still disagree. A record of dates by country, rather than a total, is what lets each side be answered.
Is a day-count record needed if I claim a treaty exemption?
Usually yes, and more so than for an ordinary return. An exemption that depends on the length or the pattern of your presence is a conditional claim, and the conditions are facts you have to evidence, not conclusions you assert. The exemption itself is often the easy part; producing the presence behind it years later is the work. A claim supported by a contemporaneous record is answered from a document. The same claim supported by recollection becomes an argument, and an argument about dates is one the person holding the records tends to win.
What counts as foreign income, and what is a foreign tax?
Foreign income is income sourced outside the country you are filing in — where the work was done, where the property sits, where the payer is resident, depending on the type. A foreign tax, for credit purposes, is a levy imposed by another country that functions as an income tax and that you were legally required to pay. Consumption taxes, property taxes and most social contributions are not, however real the cost. Sourcing is decided by rule, not by which bank received it. See the foreign tax credit.
How does a remittance actually work, and is it taxed?
A remittance is a transfer of money, not a category of income, and moving your own funds between your own accounts is not what creates tax. What can create tax is the income behind the money and the rules of the country it leaves. India, for instance, collects tax at source when a resident individual remits abroad under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, and requires certification before certain payments leave. The transfer is the trigger for paperwork rather than for tax. See the LRS and tax collected at source.
