Now, RBI allow non resident Indians to transfer funds from their NRO account to NRE account within the overall ceiling limit of $ 1 million per year subject to payment of taxes as applicable to the NRI in India.
Earlier to this notification, RBI only allow fund to be transferred from NRE account to NRO account and not the other way round.
While transferring money from NRO account to NRE account, NRIs are required to follow the procedures as stipulated by RBI and other statutory bodies of India.
In view of this provision, we will discuss how a NRI can transfer money from NRO account to NRE account.
Documents required for initiating fund transfer from NRO account to NRE account
Before transferring fund to NRE account from a NRO account, you are required to get following documents.
- Chartered accountant’s certificate in form 15CB
- Acknowledgement of form 15CA
- Request letter for transferring forms to the bank
- FEMA declaration
- Documentary evidence for source of funds
Procedure for transferring funds from NRO account to NRE account
In the first step you need to approach a chartered accountant to issue a certificate in form 15CB (link to download).
Chartered accountant will be asking you for documents and details to know the source of fund and whether TDS has to be deducted or already deducted from it.
After verification, a certificate in form 15CB will be issued to the NRI stating the source of fund,
In the second step, login to your income tax account and under e-file tab click on “prepare and submit online form (other than ITR)”.
Choose form 15CA from the form name drop down and fill up all the details before submission. After submitting the 15CA, an acknowledgement will be generated with a number in it. Take a print out and sign the form.
In the third and last step, you are required to submit following documents to the bank where your NRE account is kept.
- Form 15CA acknowledgement
- Form 15CB – Certificate of chartered accountant
- Cheque for the amount that need to be transferred from NRO to NRE account
- Application form or request letter for transfer of funds
After verifying above documents and details bank will transfer the fund from NRO account to NRE account.
Out of the above steps, the most important and time consuming step is CA certificate or getting form 15CB. The chartered accountant will be verify the source of fund that you are transferring and whether its tax deductible or not. After getting CA certificate, other formalities can be completed easily.
As per the recent notification (67/2003) related to 15CA and 15CB, these forms will be required only when the amount transferred to a non resident by a person is chargeable to income tax under the provisions of income tax act, 1961.
Which means, if funds are not taxable in India then that can be transferred without form 15CB (CA certificate) and form 15CA. This rule is also applicable while transferring funds from NRO account to NRE account. However, the question is, how bank will know whether fund that are about to be transferred is not taxable in India. In this type of situation we believe that banks in India will still be asking for form 15CA and 15CB before transferring funds.