On vesting. Restricted units convert straight into shares with nothing to pay, so there is no exercise step and no choice about timing. The fair market value on the vesting date, converted to rupees, is a perquisite taxed at your slab rate as part of salary.

Because a share listed on a foreign exchange is not a listed security under Indian law. The twelve-month rule applies to securities listed on a recognised Indian exchange. Everything else, including shares in a large foreign company, needs twenty-four months from vesting for long-term treatment.

The whole gain is short-term and taxed at your slab rate rather than the long-term rate. On a meaningful position that difference can run into lakhs. It is the single most expensive mistake in this area and it is entirely a calendar problem.

Vesting. The grant date fixes nothing for capital gains purposes. Units granted four years ago that vested last quarter give you shares held for one quarter.

The fair market value at vesting, in rupees, that was already taxed as perquisite. You paid nothing for the shares, but you were taxed on their full value, and that taxed amount is your cost. Treating the cost as nil would tax the same money twice.

Each leg converts at the rate prescribed for its own date — one for the vesting date, another for the sale date. Applying a single rate to both understates or overstates the gain, and the currency movement between the two dates is itself part of what you are taxed on.

No, on two counts. The withholding covers the perquisite at vesting, not the capital gain at sale, which is entirely your responsibility. And the withholding itself is computed on assumptions about your total income, so a shortfall can arise where you have other income.

An automatic sale of part of the vested shares to fund the tax. It is a genuine disposal and belongs in your capital gains working, though at close to nil gain because it happens on the vesting day itself. People report the big sale years later and omit this one entirely.

Yes, once you are ordinarily resident. Schedule FA covers foreign assets held at any point in the calendar year, whether or not they produced income and whether or not you still held them at the end of it. Holding quietly is not an exemption from reporting.

Because that is how the schedule is drafted. It runs January to December, which sits awkwardly inside a financial-year return and is a frequent source of error. Work out the calendar-year position separately rather than reusing your financial-year numbers.

Non-disclosure of foreign assets falls under the Black Money Act rather than ordinary tax provisions, and the penalties are substantially heavier than the tax involved. Voluntary correction is treated far better than discovery. Take the dates to a chartered accountant rather than quietly starting to report from this year.

Yes, as income in India, and this is routinely forgotten. Tax withheld abroad on those dividends can generally be credited under the treaty, but only if you claim it on Form 67. People report the eventual sale and overlook several years of small dividend receipts.

The claim for foreign tax credit. It has to be filed before your return, not with it and not afterwards. Missing that sequence can cost you the credit entirely, leaving the same income taxed in two countries with no relief.

Then the perquisite is apportioned by where the services were performed, and the other country may tax its share of it. This is where genuine double taxation arises rather than merely double reporting, and it is the case that most needs professional handling.

Unvested units are usually forfeited, and vested shares are yours to keep. The tax position on shares you already hold does not change because you resigned — the holding period continues to run and the reporting obligation continues with it.

Residential status changes what is in scope. A returning NRI may have an RNOR window during which foreign income stays outside Indian tax, which affects when a sale is best made. Moving the other way raises the apportionment question on any vesting that straddles the move.

That is an investment question rather than a tax one, and the two get confused. Selling immediately means a nil capital gain and concentrates nothing further; holding takes market risk in a single company that also pays your salary. What tax adds is the twenty-four month threshold, which is a reason to be deliberate about timing rather than a reason to hold.

The mechanics differ — you buy at a discount rather than receive units — but the shape is the same: a perquisite on the discount, then capital gains from there, with the same twenty-four month rule and the same reporting. The comparison guide covers where the instruments diverge.