You also do not need to report Schedule FA for a calendar year in which you:
did not transfer money to your Global wallet,
did not buy or sell any US stocks or ETFs, and
did not hold any foreign assets at any time during that calendar year.
But I don’t believe that to be the case. Account once opened even if it is 0 is still an explicit custodial account with unique account number and therefore require disclosure.
Could you review this again with tax professionals? Given that the penalty is steep(10L per year of non- disclosure), in case of doubt it’s better to disclose.
As per the Income tax act, if a resident and ordinarily resident (ROR) customer’s Global account stayed open at any time during the calendar year, it should be reported in Table A2 of Schedule FA, even with a nil balance.
Reason: Table A2 covers custodial accounts held at any time during the calendar year. It asks for the opening date, peak balance and closing balance, and nil is a valid entry.
Also, Section 43 of the Black Money Act, 2015 carries penalty of ₹10 lakh. There is an exemption where total foreign assets (excluding immovable property) do not exceed ₹20 lakh, so a nil account alone is unlikely to attract it. The duty to report still remains.
@nithin_kumrr@Himalay_Sharma@siva@nithin Given the clarification I believe it’s in the best interest of customers and viewers of your article to have this information made explicit in a yellow warning table. This becomes a serious issue if the user already had 20L foreign assets with say, other brokers but failed to disclose yours just because they hit “Activate segment” but never transferred a dollar - just because they believed the information in your article.
Some information is better than no information.
No information is better than false information.
I have never filed an ITR before. If I open a US brokerage account and want to report my US investments in my Indian income tax return, which ITR form should I file — ITR-1, ITR-2, ITR-3, or ITR-4? and also Indian financial year is April-march but US is Jan-dec for individual tax payers which 1 i should consider please give clarification @BB789@Quicko