On the 20th of September 2025, Ashutosh Financial Services brought together UK-based NRIs for a session on the shifting rules that govern their money back home. It is a belief the firm has held for decades: sound financial decisions rest on sound financial knowledge, and NRIs in particular often find themselves navigating two regulatory worlds at once, with little time or local guidance to make sense of either.
The session, titled “Changing Landscape of Taxation, Regulations and Investments in India,” was conducted as a webinar for UK NRIs and led by Daxesh Kothari and CA CFP Rajit Kothari. Their audience faced a familiar set of questions: how to hold money in India legally as a non-resident, what gets taxed and what doesn’t, how succession works across two legal systems, and where their capital might actually be put to work. These aren’t abstract concerns. Every NRI who has ever tried to open a bank account, file a return, or plan an inheritance across borders knows how quickly the details matter.
The session opened with banking basics that many NRIs overlook until they run into trouble. Under India’s foreign exchange law (FEMA), a person who becomes an NRI cannot continue holding a resident savings account — it must be closed or converted. From there, four account types come into play: the NRO account, which holds non-repatriable rupee funds and taxes interest income; the NRE account, which holds remittances from abroad, allows the balance to be freely sent back overseas, and exempts interest from tax; the FCNR deposit, held in foreign currency with similarly tax-free interest; and the RFC account. The session also addressed a practical bottleneck — moving money from an NRO account to an NRE account or abroad. NRIs can transfer up to USD 1 million a year, provided applicable taxes are settled and a chartered accountant certifies the transfer, with the Reserve Bank of India able to extend that limit in genuine hardship cases involving inherited assets.
Documentation was another thread running through the session. A PAN card is required for nearly anything involving Indian finance — from opening a demat account to buying property — while Aadhaar and OCI registration serve different, sometimes overlapping, purposes; notably, an NRI is not obligated to obtain Aadhaar even if eligible, though PAN holders who do have one must link the two.
On taxation, the presentation laid out a principle that anchors much of NRI planning: any income that accrues, arises, or is received in India is taxable there, regardless of where the person lives. The India–UK Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement then determines what happens next — an NRI can choose whichever tax rate is more favourable, Indian domestic rates or DTAA-concessional rates, and can claim credit in the UK for tax already paid in India, so only the difference is owed there. This mechanism was illustrated with a sample cross-border reporting format, converting Indian income and asset figures into pounds sterling for UK filing purposes.
Succession law received equal attention, since it’s one of the more misunderstood areas for NRIs. Indian assets pass according to Indian succession law regardless of where the owner lived or died — either as directed by a valid will, or, absent one, according to the Hindu Succession Act. A nomination on a bank account or investment doesn’t override this: the nominee is only a custodian of the asset until it passes to the legal heir under the will or intestate succession rules. A will for Indian assets can be prepared and signed abroad, provided it meets basic legal requirements and is witnessed before a notary.
The latter part of the session turned to opportunity. India’s growth was framed against global peers — a projected 6.2% growth rate for 2025, ahead of every other major economy in the comparison — driven by a young, English-speaking workforce, digitisation, and rising domestic capital formation. Practical routes for NRIs to participate were discussed, including SIP-based mutual fund investing, Portfolio Management Services for larger, more concentrated portfolios, and GIFT City funds, which let NRIs invest through India’s International Financial Services Centre without opening a demat or bank account in India, with gains often exempt from Indian tax and no compliance filings required. Guaranteed income and pension plans were presented as one route for retirement planning, alongside equity-linked systematic withdrawal plans. Real estate was treated with more caution than enthusiasm — the session noted the genuine liquidity and management challenges NRIs face with Indian property, suggesting it’s rarely the most efficient vehicle compared to financial assets.
Sessions like this one reflect a simple conviction: NRIs manage two systems, two tax codes and two sets of expectations, and clarity on both sides makes for better decisions. Ashutosh Financial Services continues to run these sessions with the aim of keeping that knowledge current as India’s regulatory and investment landscape keeps shifting.
