Step-up in cost base on arrival — can I handle this myself?
Some of it, yes — and we will say so on the call if that is the honest answer. The parts that are worth paying for are the ones where a missed election, a missed deadline or an unverified threshold costs more than the fee: the reset applies to property held at arrival, so gains accrued before immigration generally fall outside the new country's tax.
What if I have already filed and got it wrong?
That is a common starting point. We re-derive the position, identify whether an amendment or a disclosure route is the right vehicle, and tell you which one preserves the relief that is still available. The order matters more than the speed.
How long will it take?
It depends on the documents rather than on us. Once the pack is complete most filings turn around inside a fortnight; anything that needs a certificate from a tax authority runs on that authority's timetable, which we tell you at the start rather than at the end.
Do I pay tax here on gains from before I arrived?
Generally not, and that is the point of the reset. Becoming resident typically resets the cost base of most property you already hold to its value on the day you arrive, so gains that accrued while you lived elsewhere fall outside the new country's reach. What you are taxed on later is the movement from that arrival value to the eventual proceeds. The relief is only as good as the evidence of the arrival value, though. Without it, an authority has nothing to work from except the original purchase price, and years of foreign growth come back into the calculation.
What proof do I need of what my property was worth on arrival?
Documents dated to the arrival day, obtained as close to it as possible. For listed holdings, broker or platform statements showing the position and the price. For real property, a valuation from a qualified valuer in that country, addressed to the correct date. For private company shares, a valuation setting out its method and assumptions rather than a figure alone. For anything held in another currency, the exchange rate used and its source. Gather this at the time. A valuation prepared years afterwards is still worth having, but it is an opinion reached without seeing the asset as it was, and it is weaker evidence for exactly that reason.
Does the cost base reset apply to everything I own?
Most property held at the date of arrival, but not all of it, and the exceptions are what catch people. Assets connected to a business carried on in the new country, certain interests in land there, and property already within that country's tax net before you arrived commonly sit outside the reset. Rights that have not yet vested, such as unexercised employment awards, raise their own questions because they may not be property you hold in the relevant sense. Inventory what you own before the move and mark each item as reset or not, because the answer determines what evidence is worth collecting.
Which exchange rate applies to property I bought in another currency?
The reset fixes a value at the arrival date, and if the asset is denominated in another currency that value has to be expressed in your new reporting currency using a rate for that date from a source you can name. Apply the same source across every asset rather than choosing per item. It is worth understanding what this means in practice: currency movement between purchase and arrival is absorbed into the reset, and movement after arrival becomes part of the gain you are taxed on, even where the asset has not moved in its own currency at all. Record the rate at the time.
I arrived some years ago and kept no valuations — what now?
The reset still applies. What you are missing is evidence, and evidence can be rebuilt, just less persuasively and at more cost. Listed holdings are usually recoverable from historic price data and old statements. Real property can be valued retrospectively by a valuer instructed to the arrival date, working from records of the property and the market at that time. Private holdings are the hardest and depend on what accounts and transaction history survive. Do it before a disposal rather than after, because a valuation prepared while nothing is being sold carries none of the appearance of being reverse-engineered from a result.
Does my arrival date or my visa date set the cost base?
Neither automatically. The date that matters is the day you became tax resident, which is a question of the residency rules and, where two countries both have a claim, of the treaty. That can differ from the day you landed and will often differ from the date on an immigration document. Fix the residency date first and evidence it, because every valuation you obtain is addressed to that date and a valuation prepared to the wrong day protects nothing. Where family members become resident on different dates, each person's property is reset by reference to their own date, not the household's.
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.
Branch or subsidiary — which should we use to expand?
A branch keeps one taxpayer: results consolidate at home, losses are usable sooner, and the exposure is that the branch is a permanent establishment whose profit the host country taxes, sometimes with a branch tax on repatriation. A subsidiary is a separate taxpayer with limited liability and local rates, at the cost of withholding on dividends home and transfer pricing on everything between them. The deciding facts are usually expected losses, liability and exit plans. See branch against subsidiary.
