Skip to main content

Without UID, expatriates unable to file tax returns

By

Many expatriates living in India and non-resident Indians living in any other country may just end up in tax trouble with no fault of theirs. They all are set to miss the July 31 deadline for filing income-tax returns due to snags in the e-filing system. 
Several expats are unable to file tax returns because the e-filing system would not accept it without an Aadhaar card link. 
This despite the government, through a recent notification, clarified that foreign citizens are not required to obtain Aadhaar card for tax filing purpose. “In several cases, the income tax e-filing system is not allowing expatriates to upload their returns without Aadhaar as they have been tagged as Indian citizens in the income tax database,” said Amit Maheshwari, partner at Ashok Maheshwary & Associates LLP that is helping several expats deal with the problem. “This anomaly seems to have its origin at the time of allotment of PAN,” he said. That is not the only problem. 
“In several cases, expats who are not tagged in the jurisdiction of the international tax ward are also not able to upload their tax returns,” Maheshwari said. Another person in the know said, "There seems to be some bug in the IT application as it asks expatriates to submit their foreign bank account when that's not required as per the law.” 
NRIs, too, “are unable to upload their tax returns when they mention their country of residence”, the person told ET. Several representations on the issue have been made to the government in the last couple of weeks. The government is yet to take any action in this regard. An email sent to Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Thursday morning did not elicit any response as of press time. Many expats and NRIs want the government to extend the deadline for filing the returns. 
An expert, however, said extending the deadline for just one section of the taxpayer is impossible. “If the government decides to extend the deadline, that has to be done for all taxpayers,” the person said. 
The issue of Aadhaar card has come to revisit expats who had thought it was resolved. In April, many tax experts took a view that the Finance Act, 2017 had made it mandatory to enrol for Aadhaar to file tax returns in India or apply for a PAN or keep the existing PAN active effective July 1 if the person is eligible for Aadhaar. 
Under the Aadhaar Act, anyone who is in India for more than 182 days in aggregate in the past 12 months becomes eligible to obtain Aadhaar. This meant that many expatriates were required to obtain an Aadhaar number, experts said. The possibility of having to give out personal details including biometric ones caused panic among the expat community. 
The Economic Times, New Delhi, 28th July 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

By
  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...
Post a Comment
Read more