Do I need a PAN if I only hold an Indian bank account?
Holding an account and making a filing are different thresholds, and the identifier tends to be required at the point where tax is deducted or a return is filed rather than at the point the account is opened. The practical question is usually not whether you are obliged to have one, but what happens without it: deduction takes place anyway, and the amount deducted cannot be matched to you when you eventually file. Money withheld that cannot be traced is money you have paid and cannot recover. That is why obtaining the identifier is the first step in most non-resident files.
Can I claim a treaty rate without a PAN?
A treaty claim has to be made by an identified person, and in the Indian system the identifier is how the claim, the deduction and the eventual return are connected to one another. A payer asked to withhold at a treaty rate needs to report the deduction against somebody. Without the identifier it is reported against nobody useful, and the relief you were entitled to becomes an amount you cannot demonstrate was ever paid on your behalf. Settle the identifier before the payment is made; retrofitting it once the deduction has been reported is slower and sometimes impossible.
I have forgotten my PAN — can I still file?
A filing needs the identifier, but the identifier already exists, so you are recovering a number rather than applying for a new one. That distinction matters, because applying again creates a second identifier, and two identifiers for one person cause more trouble than having none: deductions split between them, credits appear against the one you are not using, and the duplication has to be surrendered before anything reconciles. Recover the original from records held in India, from an old return, or through the issuing authority. Only if that genuinely fails is any other route worth discussing.
Does my PAN change when I become non-resident?
The identifier does not change. It attaches to the person, not to their residence status, and it survives emigration, a change of name and a change of address. What does change is everything that hangs off it: which return applies, which rate a payer should be operating, and where correspondence and refunds are sent. The failure we see most often is an identifier still carrying an Indian address the person left years ago, so notices and refunds are issued to somewhere nobody reads. Update the details rather than the identifier.
Why is my Indian refund stuck when tax was deducted?
Almost always because the deduction has not landed against your identifier in the way the return assumes. The payer may have reported it under a slightly different spelling of your name, against the wrong period, or against no identifier at all. From your side it looks as though tax was plainly paid; from the system's side there is no credit to release. The fix is reconciliation rather than argument: obtain the record of what has been reported against your identifier, compare it line by line with your own certificates, and pursue the payer to correct the entries that do not match.
Do I need a PAN to sell property in India?
In practice, yes, and the sale is where the consequences are sharpest. The buyer is required to withhold from the price and to report that withholding against the seller. Withholding on a property sale is applied to the sale price rather than to the gain, so the amount taken routinely exceeds the tax actually due, and the difference comes back only through a return. Without an identifier the deduction cannot be tied to you, the return cannot claim it, and a substantial sum sits with the authorities. Deal with it well before completion, not afterwards.
Do NRIs pay tax on money sent to India?
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.
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.
