On 11th July 2024, Bharatiya Pravasi Parishad (BPP) Kuwait Fahaheel area committee conducted an online seminar on the subject ‘Income Tax Awareness for NRIs’.

The seminar conducted by Mr. Sudhir V. Menon (President-BPP Kuwait) discussed in detail about the taxation system in India and made NRIs aware of the benefits and necessity of filing Income Tax returns. Many believe that being NRI makes them exempt from Income Tax. However, any income earned in India such as rental income, gains from trading in various securities in Indian stock exchanges like shares, mutual funds etc, sale of assets such as gold, land & building etc will contribute to taxable income in India.

Income Tax notices are mainly received by NRIs who are engaged in property transactions, made significant fixed deposits and have not filed IT returns in India. If the contact details associated with PAN are not updated, an NRI might not know that there is a notice issued to him by IT department! This prevents him from timely filing of online responses. Hence, it is a good practice for all NRIs to file IT return even if there is no income in India, to establish the NRI status in India.

Mr. Sudhir explained about income tax applicable for non-residents with regard to any of the transactions in real estate sector. He also explained how tax relief is possible in that sector.

Further, various methods available for filing IT return was described by the speaker. He also enlightened the attendees with the type of IT return form applicable for NRIs and also about normal tax regime and alternative tax regime.

Apart from clarifying various doubts of the audience, he also explained how Tax Residency Certificate can be sourced from Kuwait.

Earlier, Mr. Prabhakaran Kannan (President-BPP Fahaheel Area) welcomed the attendees and Mr. Raju Samanta (Executive Committee Member-BPP Fahaheel Area) proposed the vote of thanks.

BPP will be continuing with many more seminars useful for the Indian Community residing in Kuwait.