What are the taxes for trading debt/equity in India?
"Are these all of the taxes or is there any additional taxes over these? Turn-over tax is not for retail investors. Other taxes are paid by the broker as part of transaction and one need not worry too much about it. Is there any ""Income tax"" to be paid for shares bought/holding shares? No for just buying and holding. However if you buy and sell; there would be a capital gain or loss. In stocks, if you hold a security for less than 1 year and sell it; it is classified as short term capital gain and taxes at special rate of 15%. The loss can be adjusted against any other short term gain. If held for more than year it is long term capital gain. For stock market, the tax is zero, you can't adjust long term losses in stock markets. Will the money received from selling shares fall under ""Taxable money for FY Income tax""? Only the gain [or loss] will be tread as income not the complete sale value. To calculate gain, one need to arrive a purchase price which is price of stock + Brokerage + STT + all other taxes. Similar the sale price will be Sales of stock - Brokerage - STT - all other taxes. The difference is the gain.  Will the ""Dividend/Bonus/Buy-back"" money fall under taxable category? Dividend is tax free to individual as the company has already paid dividend distribution tax. Bonus is tax free event as it does not create any additional value. Buy-Back is treated as sale of shares if you have participated. Will the share-holder pay ""Dividend Distribution Tax""? Paid by the company. What is ""Capital Gains""? Profit or loss of buying and selling a particular security."
I have some more inputs to investigate: India has dual tax avoidance treaty signed with european countries so that NRIs dont pay tax in both countries. Please check if India has some agreement with Swiss Also for freelance job that is delivered from India, u need to make sure where you have to pay taxes as you are still in India so the term NRI will not hold good here. Also, if Swiss company is paying tax there, and you are  a freelancer from India(resident in india) how to tax filing /rate etc has to be investigated. Also, can you apply for tax back from swiss( a portion of tax paid can be refunded eg: in Germany) but I dont know if this is true for Freelancers and also for people out side SWISS. Bip Because interest is tax deductible. I don't know much about the Chevron deal, but I'm an EM debt analyst and typically the issue you have is that dividends are taxed but interest is not. So to move money from a subsidiary instead of putting in equity and getting dividends (tax inefficient), instead you give debt and get interest back. You get a little less flexibility on payment but you more than make up for that (on average) with tax efficiency.   Don't think of it as a loan at all. Think of it as a pseudo-equity investment with required dividends.  Revenue is not taxed, profit is. Interest comes out of profit, dividends however are issued after profit.  This could all be wrong vis-a-vis Chevron. This is just how most of the companies I look at work. Can I transfer these money to India in my saving account? What will be tax implication to me? Yes you can. Whether you transfer to India or not does not change your tax obligation. If I understand correctly you are being paid an allowance in UK to cover your expense. If you are saving; then the saving portion is treated as income and you have to self declare this and pay tax according to you tax bracket. Can I transfer these money to my wife's account as a gift? What will be tax implication to me and my wife? There is no tax obligation to your wife. The tax obligation remain same to you as in first point. What if i transfer these money as loan refund to my friend? What will be tax implication for these to me and my friend? If there is proper paper trial to show your friend loaned you a sum at zero percentage and you have paid back; amounts are not to large; then there is no tax obligation to your friend. The tax obligation remains same to you as in point 1. Most of stock trading occurs on what is called a secondary market. For example, Microsoft is traded on NASDAQ, which is a stock exchange. An analogy that can be made is that of selling a used car. When you sell a used car to a third person, the maker of your car is unaffected by this transaction and the same goes for stock trading. Still within the same analogy, when the car is first sold, money goes directly to the maker (actually more complicated than that but good enough for our purposes). In the case of stock trading, this is called an Initial Public Offering (IPO) / Seasoned Public Offering (SPO), for most purposes. What this means is that a drop of value on a secondary market does not directly affect earning potential. Let me add some nuance to this. Say this drop from 20$ to 10$ is permanent and this company needs to finance itself through equity (stock) in the future. It is likely that it would not be able to obtain as much financing in this matter and would either 1) have to rely more on debt and raise its cost of capital or 2) obtain less financing overall. This could potentially affect earnings through less cash available from financing. One last note: in any case, financing does not affect earnings except through cost of capital (i.e. interest paid) because it is neither revenue nor expense. Financing obtained from debt increases assets (cash) and liabilities (debt) and financing obtained from stock issuance increases assets (cash) and shareholder equity. As per Indian tax laws; income, expense, gain and loss constitute the basic pillars of every individual’s economic life. There are very few cases under which this new 'income' is non taxable. Based on the circumstances, you might have to pay capital gains tax. "If you sell a stock, with no distributions, then your gain is taxable under §1001.  But not all realized gains will be recognized as taxable.  And some gains which are arguably not realized, will be recognized as taxable. The stock is usually a capital asset for investors, who will generate capital gains under §1(h), but dealers, traders, and hedgers will get different treatment.  If you are an investor, and you held the stock for a year or more, then you can get the beneficial capital gain rates (e.g. 20% instead of 39.6%).  If the asset was held short-term, less than a year, then your tax will generally be calculated at the higher ordinary income rates.  There is also the problem of the net investment tax under §1411.  I am eliding many exceptions, qualifications, and permutations of these rules. If you receive a §316 dividend from a stock, then that is §61 income.  Qualified dividends are ordinary income but will generally be taxed at capital gains rates under §1(h)(11).  Distributions in redemption of your stock are usually treated as sales of stock.  Non-dividend distributions (that are not redemptions) will reduce your basis in the stock to zero (no tax due) and past zero will be treated as gain from a sale. If you exchange stock in a tax-free reorganization (i.e. contribute your company stock in exchange for an acquirer's stock), you have what would normally be considered a realized gain on the exchange, but the differential will not be recognized, if done correctly. If you hold your shares and never sell them, but you engage in other dealings (short sales, options, collars, wash sales, etc.) that impact those shares, then you can sometimes be deemed to have recognized gain on shares that were never sold or exchanged. A more fundamental principle of income tax design is that not all realized gains will be recognized.  IRC §1001(c) says that all realized gains are recognized, except as otherwise provided; that ""otherwise"" is substantial and far-ranging." If you want to prove the actual tax liability you have in the US - you have to file a tax return. If the Romanian government believes you that the withholding is your actual tax - fine, but that would be a lie. Withholding is not a tax. The American payers must withhold from foreigners enough to have transferred more than the actual tax the foreigners would have paid. The standard withholding is 30%, but the actual tax on dividends varies. In case the tax treaty limits the tax on dividends - the withholding is usually up to the maximum of the tax allowed by the treaty. But allowed doesn't mean that would be the actual tax. In many cases it is not. So if you want to claim the US tax paid as a credit towards your Romanian tax - you'll need to file a tax return in the US, calculate the actual tax liability and that would be the amount of credit you can claim. The difference between that amount and the amount withheld by the payer will be refunded to you by the IRS. You don't have to file a US tax return, that is true. But the withholding is not the tax, the actual tax liability may have been less, and the Romanian tax authority may deny your credit, in whole or in part, based on the fact that you haven't filed a US tax return and as such have no proof of your actual tax paid. You had some experience with the UK tax treaty, and you think all the treaties are the same. That may be a reasonable line of thought, but it is incorrect. Treaties are not the same. More importantly, even if the treaty is the same - the tax law is not. While in the UK the tax on dividends may be flat and from the first pound - in the US it is neither flat nor from the first dollar. Thus, while in the UK you may have been used to paying tax at source and that's it - in the US it doesn't work that way at all. With $7 Million at stake I guess it would be prudent to take legal advise as well as advise from qualified CA. Forex trading for select currency pair [with one leg in INR] is allowed. Ex USDINR, EURINR, JPYINR, GBPINR. Forex trading for pairs without INR or not in the above list is NOT allowed.