Do I have to report crypto I hold in my own wallet?
Holding without an intermediary does not put a holding outside the reporting regimes, but it does change how they apply. Several of those rules are written around accounts and the institutions that keep them, so a wallet you control yourself sits awkwardly inside them. The answer turns on how the holding is characterised and whether the rule in question reaches property as well as accounts. What changes for certain is the evidence. Nobody is going to send you a statement, so the record you keep is the record that exists, and it should be built as you go rather than at the year end.
Is a hardware wallet a foreign account?
A device is not an account, and that is usually where the analysis starts rather than where it ends. Rules written for accounts look for an institution holding something for you, and self-custody by definition has no such institution. But the regimes do not all stop at accounts, and some reach property generally, wherever it sits and whoever holds it. So the question is which rule is being asked about. Take the position, write down why, and keep the working. A position recorded at the time is worth considerably more than the same position explained after a query has arrived.
How do I prove what I paid for coins in self-custody?
From the chain and from your bank. The record on the chain shows when a holding arrived at an address you control and what came with it; the bank record shows what left your account and when. Between the two, most acquisitions can be evidenced without a platform statement. Where coins were acquired before you started keeping records, the cost base is reconstructed and the method used is stated on the schedule. The habit worth forming is a note at each acquisition: the address, the date, the consideration and the source. It takes a minute then and hours later.
Does moving coins from an exchange to my own wallet trigger tax?
Moving a holding between places you control is generally a change of custody rather than a change of ownership, and a transfer to yourself is not the same event as a sale. The difficulty is evidential rather than legal. On a schedule built from platform exports, an outgoing transfer looks exactly like a disposal, and it will be read as one unless the matching receipt at your own address is shown beside it. So the pair should be recorded together, with both addresses and the dates, at the time it happens.
Who reports a wallet that two people control together?
Control and beneficial ownership are different questions, and reporting usually follows the second. A shared key arrangement can mean two owners, one owner with a second signatory, or a holding on trust for someone else entirely, and those produce different reporting for different people. Because nothing about the arrangement is written down anywhere by default, the documentation is yours to create. We set out who contributed what, who bears the risk, and what each party is entitled to, and then report on that footing rather than on who happens to hold the device.
What records should I keep for a wallet with no statements?
Addresses, dates, counterparties where they are known, the consideration on each side, and the reason for each movement. Keep transfers between your own addresses labelled as such, because an unexplained outgoing transaction reads as a disposal. Keep the source of any valuation used, including which market you took it from. Keep the original acquisition evidence even when the holding has since moved on. The test to apply is a simple one: could somebody who has never seen your wallet follow the schedule from the first acquisition to the year end without having to ask you a question.
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.
