What is included in the fee for 15ca/15cb remittance certification?
The remitter declaration and the accountant's certificate on an outward Indian remittance, prepared to the standard the bank will actually accept.
What would make 15ca/15cb remittance certification cost more than the standard tier?
The nature of the payment. A repatriation of your own funds is one analysis; a payment for services, royalties or a property sale is another, and each has its own treaty position.
Is the fee really fixed?
Yes, for the scope quoted. If the scope changes — another year appears, an entity turns up, a certificate becomes necessary — we re-quote before doing the work, so there is never an invoice you have not already agreed to.
How much does a 15CA and 15CB certification cost?
The fee is fixed and agreed in writing before any work starts, and it is quoted for the remittance in front of us rather than for an hour of work. What moves the price is how much has to be established before a certificate can be signed: the source of the funds, the tax already paid on them, and whether a treaty position has to be documented. A single payment out of an account whose history is clear prices at the standard tier. If the quote turns out to understate the work, we re-quote and you decide before anything continues.
Do I need both 15CA and 15CB, or just one?
They are two different documents doing two different jobs. The 15CB is the accountant's certificate: it records what the payment is, how it has been treated for tax, and on what basis. The 15CA is your own declaration as the remitter, filed against that certificate. Which parts apply depends on the nature of the payment and on whether a certificate is required at all, so the first thing we do is establish which combination your remittance actually needs. Quoting for both when only the declaration is needed would be charging you for paper the bank will never ask to see.
Why did my bank refuse the certificate my accountant issued?
Almost always because the certificate and the paperwork behind it do not line up. The name on the certificate does not match the account, the purpose recorded on the remittance is not the purpose the certificate describes, or the tax treatment stated cannot be traced to anything the branch can see. A certificate is only useful if the people releasing the funds accept it, so we prepare it against the documents the bank will be holding. Where one has already been refused, we start from the refusal and quote for re-preparing it rather than opening the file from scratch.
Is the fee charged per remittance or per year?
Per remittance. Each outward payment is certified on its own facts, so somebody sending funds twice in a year is quoted twice. Where the payments come from the same source and nothing has changed between them, the same account, the same underlying funds, the same tax position, the later ones are quoted as repeats of the first, because the work of establishing the position has already been done. Tell us at the quoting stage how many payments you expect over the year and we will price the set rather than pricing each one as it arrives.
What documents do you need before you can quote?
Enough to see what the money is and where it has been. For a remittance out of sale proceeds that means the sale document and the tax paid on the sale. For funds that have accumulated in an account it means the statements and the returns that reported the income. For a payment made by a business it means the contract or the invoice behind it. We would rather read those before quoting than quote blind and revise the figure once the work is under way, so the written fee follows the reading rather than preceding it.
Can you certify money my bank has already sent abroad?
The certificate belongs to the payment before it leaves, so a remittance that has already gone out is a different engagement. What we can do is document the position the payment should have carried, prepare the declaration that was not filed, and deal with whatever the bank or the tax authority raises about it afterwards. That work is quoted separately from an ordinary certification, because it means reconstructing a position rather than certifying one that is sitting in front of us. Bring the bank advice and the source documents and we will tell you which of the two you are in.
Is dividend income from Indian shares taxable for an NRI?
Yes. Dividends are taxed in the shareholder's hands, and the paying company withholds on payment to a non-resident. The treaty can reduce that withholding, but only if the documents are with the company before it pays: a tax residency certificate from your country, Form 10F, and a PAN on the register. Without them the domestic rate applies and your route back to the difference is a refund claim on an Indian return. See residency certificates and Form 10F.
Is money received in India from abroad taxable?
Receiving your own money is not income, and a gift from a specified relative is exempt however large. Two things do bite. A gift from someone outside that relative list is taxable to the recipient once the year's receipts pass the threshold in the gift provisions. And money that is really payment for something — fees, rent, interest, a share of profit — is taxed as that income whatever the bank narration says. The paperwork should match the substance. See gifting money to family in India.
