Income tax on my online drop-shipping business (India)
Please consult a tax advisor.   You may be voilating the FEMA [Foreign Exchange Management Act] and can land into trouble.  Further what you are doing can land up into various other acts as illegal including AML.   Further if there is income generated by Indian citizen in India, he is still liable to pay tax, irrespective of whether you get the funds back into India. Edit: AML is Anti Money Laundering. Your transaction is sure to raise AML triggers as it looks like converting Black Money to White in round about way. Once the triggers are raised, RBI division will investigate further to verify what you are doing. If you are able to prove that this is a valid transaction, you would be OK on AML front. How will Income Tax Know? - If they don't know does not mean you are not liable for tax. - Any suspicious transactions would get investigated and sooner or later Income Tax would know about it and can cause a serious problem. - It is irrelevant where you have kept the money, if you have earned something, its taxable. For it not to be taxable you need to conduct this business differently.  Please consult a tax adviser who will advice you on the tax-ability of this type of transaction. I find that there are two violation of law , prima facie , if someone earns money by depositing in the online account and then not reporting it ( including in his total income for the year ) and not bringing in India. Income Tax Act violation 1. It is simply comcealment liable for penalty & prosecution under I.T.Act. 2. You should know that anyone who is resident of India as per income Tax Act and having taxable income ( gross total income exceeding exemption limit) will have to fill up the column in his/her income tax return whether  Previously these column were not in the Income Tax Return. So , now anyone who is liable to file return of Income can be tried for false return if he has hiddne assets aborad. 2. FEMA violation RBI  permits remittance under Liberalized Remittance Scheme. However this scheme can not be used for certain purpose . It is important to examine whether RBI prohibits use of remittance for any entity or business you have described. You can read following FAQ on RBI site Q. 30. What are the prohibited items under the Scheme? Ans.  The remittance facility under the Scheme is not available for   the following: i) Remittance for any purpose specifically prohibited under Schedule-I   (like purchase of lottery tickets/sweep stakes, proscribed magazines,   etc.) or any item restricted under Schedule II of Foreign Exchange   Management (Current Account Transactions) Rules, 2000; ii) Remittance from India for margins or margin calls to overseas   exchanges / overseas counter-party; iii) Remittances for purchase of FCCBs issued by Indian companies in   the overseas secondary market; iv)  Remittance for trading in foreign exchange abroad; v) Remittance by a resident individual for setting up a company   abroad; vi) Remittances directly or indirectly to Bhutan, Nepal, Mauritius and   Pakistan; vii) Remittances directly or indirectly to countries identified by the   Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as “non co-operative countries and   territories”, from time to time; and viii) Remittances directly or indirectly to those individuals and   entities identified as posing significant risk of committing acts of   terrorism as advised separately by the Reserve Bank to the banks. You will have to examine , if the remittance was NOT done for purpose not allowed by RBI under LRS . If you clear this , you can say there is no violation and your violation is restricted to I.T.Act only.
After that I moved to the Middle East on March 23rd, 2015 As an NRI, one should not hold any Savings account. Please have this converted to NRO Account. Additionally it is advised that you open an NRE account. Both these can be done remotely. If I transfer money from here to a non NRE/NRO account then is it taxable? Assuming its income earned when you are NRI, it is not taxable. However if there is audit enquiry you would need to have sufficient proof to back that this income is earned during your period as NRI and hence not taxable. As indicate above, holding a savings account when you are NRI is a breach of FEMA regulation.  I have been getting mail from myITreturns.com to file income tax returns. Since I am considered as NRI, do I have to fill any non return form online? If there is a source of income in India, interest on savings account etc, it is taxable and you would need to file appropriate returns. Even if you have zero income, it is safe to file a NIL return. For the year 2014 do I have to file income tax returns? For the financial year 1st April 2014 to 31st March 2015, you are still a resident Indian for tax purposes. You should have filed the return by June 2015 if there was tax due, else by March 2016. If you have not done so, please do this ASAP and regularise it. "I'm assuming that by saying ""I'm a US resident now"" you're referring to the residency determination for tax purposes. Should I file a return in the US even though there is no income here ? Yes. US taxes its residents for tax purposes (which is not the same as residents for immigration or other purposes) on worldwide income. If yes, do I get credits for the taxes I paid in India. What form   would I need to submit for the same ? I am assuming this form has to   be issued by IT Dept in India or the employer in India ? The IRS doesn't require you to submit your Indian tax return with your US tax return, however they may ask for it later if your US tax return comes under examination. Generally, you claim foreign tax credits using form 1116 attached to your tax return. Specifically for India there may also be some clause in the Indo-US tax treaty that might be relevant to you. Treaty claims are made using form 8833 attached to your tax return, and I suggest having a professional (EA/CPA licensed in your State) prepare such a return. Although no stock transactions were done last year, should I still   declare the value of total stocks I own ? If so what is an approx. tax   rate or the maximum tax rate. Yes, this is done using form 8938 attached to your tax return and also form 114 (FBAR) filed separately with FinCEN. Pay attention: the forms are very similar with regard to the information you provide on them, but they go to different agencies and have different filing requirements and penalties for non-compliance. As to tax rates - that depends on the types of stocks and how you decide to  treat them. Generally, the tax rate for PFIC is very high, so that if any of your stocks are classified as PFIC - you'd better talk to a professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about how to deal with them. Non-PFIC stocks are dealt with the same as if they were in the US, unless you match certain criteria described in the instructions to form 5471 (then a different set of rules apply, talk to a licensed tax adviser). I will be transferring most of my stock to my father this year, will   this need to be declared ? Yes, using form 709. Gift tax may be due. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). I have an apartment in India this year, will this need to be declared   or only when I sell the same later on ? If there's no income from it - then no (assuming you own it directly in your own name, for indirect ownership - yes, you do), but when you sell you will have to declare the sale and pay tax on the gains. Again, treaty may come into play, talk to a tax adviser. Also, be aware of Section 121 exclusion which may make it more beneficial for you to sell earlier." "Being self-employed, your ""profit"" is calculated as all the bills you send out, minus all business-related cost that you have (you will need a receipt for everything, and there are different rules for things that last for long time, long tools, machinery).  You can file your taxes yourself - the HRS website will tell you how to, and you can do it online. It's close to the same as your normal online tax return. Only thing is that you must keep receipts for all the cost that you claim.  Your tax: Assuming your gross salary is £25,000 and your profits are about £10,000, you will be paying 8% for national insurance, and 20% income tax. If you go above £43,000 or thereabouts, you pay 40% income tax on any income above that threshold, instead of 20%, but your national insurance payments stop." I assume that you are a citizen of India, and are what Indian law calls a NRI (NonResident Indian) and thus entitled to operate an NRE (NonResident External) account in India.  You can deposit US dollars into the NRE account, but the money is converted to Indian Rupees (INR) and held as INR.  You can withdraw the money and bring it back to the US as US dollars, but the INR will be converted to US$ at the exchange rate applicable on the date of the transaction.  With the recent decline of the Indian Rupee against the US dollar, many NRE accounts lost a lot of their value. You can deposit any amount of money in your NRE account. Some banks may limit the amount you can send in one business day, but if 250 times that amount seriously limits the amount of money you want to send each year, you should not be asking here; there are enough expensive lawyers, bankers and tax advisors who will gladly guide you to a satisfactory solution. There is no limitation on the total amount that you can have in your NRE account.  The earnings (interest paid) on the sum in your NRE account is not taxable income to you in India but you may still need to file an income tax return in India to get a refund of the tax withheld by the bank (TDS) and sent to the tax authorities. The bank should not withhold tax on the earnings in an NRE account but it did happen to me (in the past).  While the interest paid on your NRE account is not taxable in India, it is taxable income to you on your US tax returns (both Federal and State) and you must declare it on your tax return(s) even though the bank will not issue a 1099-INT form to you. Be aware also about  the reporting requirements for foreign accounts (FBAR, TD F90-22.1 etc). Lots of people ignored this requirement in the past, but are more diligent these days after the IRS got a truckload of information about accounts in foreign banks and went after people charging them big penalties for not filing these forms for ever so many years. There was a huge  ruckus in the Indian communities in the US about how the IRS was unfairly targeting simple folks instead of auditing the rich! But, if the total value of the accounts did not exceed $10K at any time of the year, these forms do not need to be filed. It seems, though, that you will not fall under this exemption since you are planning on having considerably larger sums in your NRE account. So be sure and follow the rules. If you are a non resident Indian, the income you earn and transfer to India is tax free in India. You can hold the funds in USD or convert then into INR, there is no tax implication. The IRS' primary reference Pub 519 Tax Guide for Aliens -- current year online (current and previous years downloadable in PDF from the Forms&Pubs section of the website) says NO: Students and business apprentices from India.   A special rule applies .... You can claim the standard deduction .... Use Worksheet 5-1 to figure your standard deduction. If you are married and your spouse files a return and itemizes deductions, you cannot take the standard deduction. Note the last sentence, which is clearly an exception to the 'India rule', which is already an exception to the general rule that nonresident filers never get the standard deduction. Of course this is the IRS' interpretation of the law (which is defined to include ratified treaties); if you think they are wrong, you could claim the deduction anyway and when they assess the additional tax (and demand payment) take it to US Tax Court -- but I suspect the legal fees will cost you more than the marginal tax on $6300, even under Tax Court's simplified procedures for small cases. From you question I understand that you are not an Indian citizen, are staying in India, and transferring your funds for your living / expenses in India. There is no limit on such transfers and the amount is not taxed.   The tax comes into picture if you are treated as a resident in India from a tax perspective. Even then the tax is not because you have transferred the funds into India, but the policy of taxing global income. The article at http://www.pwc.in/en_IN/in/assets/pdfs/foreign-nationals-working-in-india.pdf should give you more inputs. It's not quite clear what you are asking, so I'll answer a few possible interpretations. Businesses pay taxes on their profits. So if your business took a million pounds in revenue (e.g. sold a million pounds worth of stuff) then you would subtract (roughly speaking) everything the business spent on making and selling that stuff, and pay taxes only on the profit. VAT however is a different matter, and you would have to pay VAT on all of that income (technically the VAT portion isn't even income - it's tax you are forced to collect on behalf of the government). If your business made a million pounds pounds profit, it would pay tax on all of that million (subject to what a tax accountant can do to reduce that, which ought to be considerable).  You can't subtract your personal living expenses like that. However the company can pay you a salary, which counts as an expense and the company doesn't pay tax on that. You might also take some money from the company as dividends. Both salary and dividends count as personal income to yourself, and you will need to pay personal income tax on them.  As for the Ferrari, it depends on whether you can justify it as a business expense. A lot of companies provide cars for their employees so that they can use them for business - however you have to be able to show that IS for business, otherwise they are taxed like salary. The rules for company cars are quite complicated, and you would need an accountant. If this is a real rather than hypothetical situation, definitely get a tax accountant involved.