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Comment by jitix | Hacker News Reader

I have direct experience with this as an NRI. Indian govt charges outbound INR to USD conversion at 5% for amounts above 10k USD [1]. So apart from the rupee depreciation you’d have to account for that if you ever need your money out.

I see the value of your platform and in the past I’ve invested a lot of USD in india and gotten great returns. But when I needed my money out for grad school, I had to pay these outrageous fees. Even the amount exchanged for tuition is taxed at 0.5%, all other transfers at 5%.

My net return on mutual funds investments were not so great on a dollar by dollar terms.

It’s not just me, many (younger) NRIs would prefer to invest in US index funds or if they’re feeling risky invest in vanguard emerging market funds.

Edit: added reference

[1] https://taxguru.in/service-tax/tax-implications-forex-transa...

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> Indian govt charges outbound INR to USD conversion at 5%.

I'm sorry, what?

Yes, above 10k USD. So if you need access to your investments above 10k USD you’d have to pay 5% on the extra amount. I was shocked when I found out that my forex transfer for buying a car in Canada was cancelled and I had refill an A2 form with the taxed amount added and sign and scan it. It’s a hellish experience if you’re used to the US banking system.

https://taxguru.in/service-tax/tax-implications-forex-transa...

1. You should not be subjected to TCS if you are not an Indian resident. Perhaps you did not convert your bank account to NRE?

2. You can file tax return and get a refund if your tax liability is nil or lower than tax collected at the end of the financial year.

This still doesn't make this situation better but it is not a charge, just an advance tax automatically deducted which needs to be adjusted or claimed back.

Agreed with this comment, the 5% is applicable for Indian residents, not NRIs. If the tax status and bank account was not updated to NRI, this would have been incurred.

LRS and the associated TCS is not applicable to NRIs. I have no idea what you're on about.

I see, my status changed from US tax resident to student in Canada so the taxes now apply. I stand corrected.

Still I feel it’s unfair in a globalized economy considering it’s reducing liquidity, as in you have to be a tax resident of some other country to avoid this steep tax. For example if you decide to take a year long sabbatical or retire in, say Portugal, you’d have to pay the tax every time you withdraw money for rent and groceries.

> I see, my status changed from US tax resident to student in Canada so the taxes now apply.

If you stay in Canada for more than 183 days in a year, you are deemed a resident of Canada. I don't understand why the tax applies.

> Still I feel it’s unfair in a globalized economy considering it’s reducing liquidity, as in you have to be a tax resident of some other country to avoid this steep tax.

It's not an additional tax. It simply changes when the tax is collected.

> For example if you decide to take a year long sabbatical or retire in, say Portugal, you’d have to pay the tax every time you withdraw money for rent and groceries. . The tax only applies if you have an Indian income of more than 15 lakh rupees and you are not a tax resident elsewhere. If you retire in Portugal, this does not apply to you.

Interesting. I'll check with our CA then. I've paid a significant amount of these 5% taxes over the past 2 years to ebixcash. They outright reject transfers beyond 700k INR otherwise.

It's probably because EbixCash isn't set up to handle remmitances by non-residents. Using a bank where you have an NRO account should allow you to remit upto 1 million USD.

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