The remittance facility under the Scheme is not available for the following:
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.
Remittance from India for margins or margin calls to overseas exchanges / overseas counterparty.
Remittances for purchase of FCCBs issued by Indian companies in the overseas secondary market.
Remittance for trading in foreign exchange abroad.
Capital account remittances, directly or indirectly, to countries identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as “non- cooperative countries and territories”, from time to time.
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.
Will it fall under the
Remittance from India for margins or margin calls to overseas exchanges / overseas counterparty.
point?
If yes I don’t understand how it is different for the margin that we pay for long stock positions?
As per the definition only creating short options position would be illegal right and long/short futures position because in those scenarios only we have the possibility to get margin calls. There is another scenario if someone exercise their call options they would be required to pay the strike price * qty but that can be avoided right?
This is kind of working in the regulatory grey area. What RBI doesn’t want Indians to do with money sent abroad under LRS is not to be in any situation where there is a margin call or additional need for funds for those positions. They also very broadly say not to take exposure to any leveraged products.
While technically, with option buying, you can debate that it is not levered since the maximum money you can lose is the premium, but in reality, it is a levered product. Also, options are American and can devolve into giving or take delivery; you could need to transfer more funds to manage that option’s position.
If you take a legal opinion from any reputed law firm or chartered accountant, they will say it best not to do any options trading with the funds sent out using LRS.
What if the initial amount for the trading account is funded by selling RSUs or options in the US stock markets, provided by foreign MNCs for their employees? In this case, person is not sending the amount from India via LRS.
Is it legal in that case? Is LRS the only block for Indians from trading in foreign derivatives or are there any other Acts that prohibit it?
As I mentioned, this is a grey area. Nothing explicitly says that you can’t do it, but in spirit I don’t think you can buy options as well since they are technically a leveraged product.
Under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, Authorised Dealers may freely allow remittances by resident individuals up to USD 2,50,000 per Financial Year (April-March) for any permitted current or capital account transaction or a combination of both.
if Individual want more than 2,50,000 remittance he/she needs RBI approval for that.
If resident in India, the RSU/ESOP received is taxed in India, click here to read more on RSU/ESOP taxation.
If you can sell the ESOPs received in the open market then you must have a broker account as a non-resident in the US, then whether you can or cannot trade in the derivatives segment is under the purview of your broker in the US.
As far as LRS is concerned it is applicable on transfer-out (money moving out of India) and as no money is transferred out of India, LRS does not apply. For eg. If you own a property in the US that you sold, leaving you with a capital amount in the US, LRS will not be under purview as money is not transferred out of India. While taxation of foreign Income (property sold) will be as per the Indian tax regime.
