Study permit holders — how much of this can I do 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: presence as a student may be excluded from residency day-counts in some systems, and treaty articles can exempt scholarship and limited employment income.
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 have to file a tax return on a study permit?
It depends on which of three positions you are in, and a study permit alone does not settle it. A student can be a tax resident, a non-resident, or an individual whose student presence is excluded from the day-count a residency test runs on. Ties matter, days matter, and the treaty between the two countries matters. Each of those three routes leads to a different return, prepared on a different basis. The practical point is that the position is established by filing it. A student who files nothing has not established that they were outside the system; they have simply left the question open for someone else to answer later.
Is my scholarship taxable if I am studying on a student visa?
Scholarship and similar grant income is one of the categories treaties commonly address, and some articles exempt it for students who came to the country to study. Whether an article applies turns on the wording of the treaty between your home country and the country you are studying in, on what the payment actually is, and on where it comes from. The exemption is not automatic in the sense of being invisible. It is claimed on a return, with the article identified and the facts stated. If the payer has already withheld tax, the filing is also how the position gets reconciled against what was withheld.
Does time spent studying count towards residency day-counts?
In some systems it does not. Presence as a student can be excluded from the day-count that a mechanical residency test relies on, which means a student physically in the country for most of the year may still not meet that test. That exclusion is usually conditional and usually time-limited, and it does not displace the other route into residence, which looks at ties rather than days: where your home is, where your family is, what you have taken with you. Two students on identical permits can land on different answers because one kept a home abroad and the other did not.
I worked part-time on campus, which return should I file?
Start with the residency conclusion rather than the payslip. Employment income earned while studying is taxed under ordinary rules if you are a resident, and under the non-resident rules for income sourced in that country if you are not. Some treaties also exempt a limited amount of employment income earned by a student, which is a separate question again. Payroll departments generally withhold on a default assumption and are not deciding your residency for you. Where the withholding was calculated on one basis and your filing position is another, the return is what corrects it. Keep the permit, the offer letter and the payslips together before anyone prepares anything.
Will filing a return affect my benefit and credit payments?
Filing is usually the mechanism that protects them. Benefit and credit entitlements are commonly assessed from filed returns, including for years in which no tax was payable, and a student with little or no income often assumes there is nothing to file and loses the entitlement rather than the tax. The same applies to a spouse or partner whose own entitlement is calculated from household figures that come off both returns. If several years have gone unfiled, the entitlement question is a reason to bring them up to date even where the tax outcome is nil.
My spouse joined me on a work permit, does our position change?
It can change it substantially. Residency by ties looks at where your household is, so a spouse and children arriving to live with you is one of the strongest facts there is, and it can move a student from a non-resident position to a resident one from the date the family arrived rather than from the start of the tax year. A treaty exemption that applied to you as an arriving student may also stop fitting the facts. Where family members arrive on different permits and at different dates, each person's position is worked out separately and then the household is looked at as a whole.
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.
