Because the United States taxes assets by where they sit, not by who owns them. If you own shares in a US company, those shares are American property in American eyes, and America claims the right to tax their transfer when you die. Your own nationality, your residence and your Indian tax status are all irrelevant to that question.

Yes. Those platforms open a brokerage account in your own name with a US broker, so you directly own US shares. That makes them US-situs assets with the same $60,000 exemption an NRI gets. Being an Indian tax resident, filing Indian returns and paying Indian tax on the gains changes nothing here — these are two different countries taxing two different things.

Shares in companies incorporated in the US, US-domiciled ETFs and mutual funds such as VOO, SPY or QQQ, US real estate, cash held in a US brokerage account, 401(k) and IRA balances, and valuables physically kept in America. The test for shares is where the company is registered — not where you bought them, which broker holds them, or which country you live in.

Deposits with a US bank, US Treasuries and most corporate bonds, life insurance on your own life, shares in non-US companies, and funds domiciled outside America even when they hold US shares. That last one is the important one: an Irish fund tracking the S&P 500 is an Irish company, so it falls outside the net completely.

These are outside the net, and it is the most reassuring answer on this page. If you hold units of an Indian scheme — a Nasdaq 100 fund of funds, an international feeder, any AMC-run scheme — you own units of an Indian fund. The fund owns the US shares; you do not. Your asset is Indian, so no US estate tax arises however large the holding.

Because it was set in 1988 and has never been indexed to inflation. The exemption for Americans has risen with prices and legislation to around $15 million; the one for foreigners has sat still for nearly forty years. There is no principle behind the gap — it is simply the number Congress wrote down and never revisited.

The rate works in slabs, starting at 18% and reaching 40% above $1 million. On $500,000 of US holdings the tax is roughly $142,800, about 29%. On $2 million it is roughly $732,800, about 37%. The calculator on this page works out your own figure.

There is a treaty on income tax, which is why your US dividends are withheld at 25% rather than 30%. There is no estate tax treaty, and that is a separate agreement entirely. The US has estate treaties with about sixteen countries. India is not one, and neither is the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Singapore, Hong Kong or Malaysia — which covers almost everywhere the Indian diaspora lives.

Residence is where you are living and paying tax now. Domicile is where your permanent home is — the place you regard as your base and intend to remain. You can be tax resident in a country without being domiciled there. US income tax follows residence; US estate tax follows domicile. Mixing the two up is the most expensive mistake in this area.

Probably the exposed side, and this is the position people most often get wrong. A work visa usually makes you a US income tax resident, filing full US returns. But if you intend to return to India eventually, you may still be non-domiciled for estate tax — which means the $60,000 exemption, not the $15 million one, on everything you have built up in America. Two tests, two answers, and only the second decides your exemption.

Substantially. A green card holder is treated as US-domiciled in almost every case, which means the full $15 million exemption applies — but also that your worldwide estate counts, including your Indian flat, your Indian deposits and your Indian mutual funds. Better protection, wider net. Surrendering the card brings its own expatriation rules and is a serious decision in its own right.

The broker freezes the account. US custodians will not release a deceased non-resident's assets until the IRS issues a transfer certificate, and that commonly takes a year or more. Form 706-NA is due nine months after death. The tax is payable before the certificate is issued, so families often have to find the money while the very assets that would pay it are locked.

The estate pays, out of the assets, before anything reaches your heirs. It is not a bill your family receives separately. The practical effect is the same though: whatever the estate pays is money your family does not inherit.

Nothing. There is no annual US filing that arises from simply owning US shares as a foreigner, beyond the W-8BEN your broker already holds. The obligation only appears at death, and it falls on whoever administers your estate.

Usually not, and people assume the opposite. Where a non-resident holds a joint account, the US includes the whole value in the deceased's estate except to the extent the survivor can prove they contributed the money. Without contribution records, joint holding can leave the full amount exposed rather than half.

Transfers to a spouse who is not a US citizen do not get the unlimited marital deduction that a citizen spouse receives, however long you have been married. The usual answer is a qualified domestic trust, which has to be in place beforehand — it cannot be created after a death.

Curiously, yes. A non-domiciled person can give away US shares during life without US gift tax, because shares count as intangible property which the US gift tax does not reach. The same shares are fully taxable at death. The gift door is open and the death door is shut, which is the reverse of what most people expect. Note that US real estate is treated differently, and that a gift to an Indian resident may be taxable in their hands unless they are a relative as defined.

They are funds registered in Ireland that track the same indices as their American cousins. Because the fund is an Irish company rather than a US one, your holding is Irish property and falls outside US estate tax entirely. Dividends usually improve too: the fund suffers 15% US withholding under the Ireland–US treaty and Ireland takes nothing on the way out, against 25% for an Indian resident or 30% for someone in the Gulf holding US funds directly.

Expense ratios are typically a little higher, trading volumes thinner, and the listings are in London or Dublin rather than New York. Switching also realises a capital gain in your own country, which has its own tax cost. And individual US shares cannot be moved — if you want to own Apple specifically, you own a US asset. The choice only exists for index exposure.

Less settled. Those are depository receipts issued outside the US over an underlying American share. The receipt is foreign, but the company behind it is still American, and there is no clear authority saying the wrapper shifts the situs. Do not assume it protects you without specific advice.

Enforcement happens at the custodian, not through an audit. The broker simply will not release the assets without the IRS transfer certificate, and the certificate will not be issued until the estate has dealt with the tax. There is no realistic way to sidestep it once the account holder has died.

Several do, but none are as harsh to foreigners. The UK charges 40% above £325,000 — the same threshold it gives its own citizens, which is the key difference. Japan, Germany, France and Spain tax non-residents but mostly reach real estate rather than listed shares. Canada and Australia have no estate tax at all. Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE and India levy nothing. Only America runs a two-tier system where citizens shelter $15 million and everyone else shelters $60,000.