Money transfer from Australia to India - avoid receiving ends service tax
All Bank fees were included in the service tax ambit [For example Check bounce, issue of duplicate statement, fees charged for remittance etc]. However as quite a few Banks structured the Remittance Business to show less charges and cover the difference in the Fx rate involved, the Govt has redone the service tax and one needs to pay Rs 120 for an amount of Rs 100,000.  There is no way to avoid service tax on remittance if you are using a remittance service.
You can receive money directly into your savings bank account. It is perfectly legal. FYI the Bank as part of regulation would report this to RBI. As the funds are received for the services you have rendered, You are liable to pay tax on the income. The income is taxed as professional income similar to the income of Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants etc. If you are paying your colleagues, it would be treated as expense. Not only this, you can also treat any phone calls you make, or equipment your purchase [laptop, desk etc] as expense. The difference become your actual income and you would be taxed as per the rate for individuals. It's advisable you contact an accountant who would advise you better for a nominal fee [few thousand rupees] and help you pay the tax and file the returns. With or without accountant It is very important for you to record all payments and expenses in a book of accounts. I want to transfer around $2000 to another bank account (which is under my name ) in India. As much as I know you cannot instruct to transfer money from your travel card to a Bank Account. You can withdraw cash at ATM or swipe it. On return you can encash the balance. Will this have any tax implications? The money provided to you by the company is meant as an allowance for your expense in US. As per law any money you save and not spend has to be declared as additional income and taxes paid accordingly. Is there any difference if I send it to my parents account? There is no difference if you transfer the funds to your account or to your parents accounts or keep the cash. If you haven't spent the allowance, its additional benefit and taxable. You have not mentioned the dates when you left India. If you leave before Oct 2 then the income is taxable, else it is not. Taxability is not depended on whether you transfer the funds to India or NOT. It is dependent on whether you are NRI for tax purposes for the given financial year. Refer to this question for more details Will it be taxable if I transfer money from UK account to India account? how could I transfer the money from UK There are multiple ways, walk into your Bank and ask them to wire transfer to the Bank Account in India. You would need the SWIFT BIC of Bank in India, Account Number, etc. Quite a few Banks [State bank of India, HDFC, ICICI etc] also offer remittance service. Visit their website for more details. does it cost the tax and how much Assuming your status is NRI [Non Resident], there is no tax implications of this in India. For the financial year 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016, as you will be spending more than 182 days you would be deemed Non-Resident Indian for tax purposes. Hence the income you earn outside India would be tax free in India. You can transfer funds into India or keep it in China, this does not change the tax situation.  Ensure that you have converted your Savings accounts in India as NRO and opened an NRE account. India and the United States have a tax treaty agreement whereby double taxation is avoided. However check with your accountant in the US who should be able to guide you further in this regard. It is now easier to transfer money out of India. As long as the source of the money is legal and can be verified. So if you decide to sell a property, get payments by way of documented bank transactions like cheques and avoid cash deals. Once taxes are paid money can usually be transferred out. Can I transfer these money to India in my saving account? What will be tax implication to me? Yes you can. Whether you transfer to India or not does not change your tax obligation. If I understand correctly you are being paid an allowance in UK to cover your expense. If you are saving; then the saving portion is treated as income and you have to self declare this and pay tax according to you tax bracket. Can I transfer these money to my wife's account as a gift? What will be tax implication to me and my wife? There is no tax obligation to your wife. The tax obligation remain same to you as in first point. What if i transfer these money as loan refund to my friend? What will be tax implication for these to me and my friend? If there is proper paper trial to show your friend loaned you a sum at zero percentage and you have paid back; amounts are not to large; then there is no tax obligation to your friend. The tax obligation remains same to you as in point 1. From what I understand, you have money earned in US and after paying taxes that are due in the US, you have transferred a portion of this to your brother. As you have earned this money outside India, there is not tax liability of this amount in India. Your giving it to your brother would at best be treated as GIFT [and not Income]. As you are giving it to your brother there is no limit on the amount of money that can be gifted. There is no tax liability for your brother. For more details read the  http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/tax/gift-tax-whatsa-gift_664238.html http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/bline/blnri/exp-tax.htm Yes you need to pay Capital Gains tax in India. Further transfer of money out of India from Ordinary account requires some formalities / paperwork. A CA should be able to guide you. Disclaimer: it's hard to be definitive as there may be some law or tax rule I'm not aware of. From a UK perspective, this should be perfectly legal. If it's just a one-off or occasional thing for personal reasons, rather than being done in the course of a business, there probably aren't any tax implications. In theory if there's an identifiable profit from the transaction, e.g. because you originally obtained the INR at a lower exchange rate, then you might be liable to capital gains tax. However this is only payable above approximately £10K capital gains (see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/cgt.htm) so unless this is a very large transaction or you have other gains in the tax year, you don't need to worry about that. I would only recommend doing this if you trust each other. If one side transfers the money and the other doesn't, the international nature will make it quite hard in practice to enforce the agreement legally, even though I think that in theory it should be possible. If the sums involved are large, you may find that the transaction is automatically reported to the authorities by your bank under money laundering regulations, or they may want documentation of the source of the funds/reason for the transaction. This doesn't automatically mean you'll have a problem, but the transaction may receive some scrutiny. I think that reporting typically kicks in when several thousand pounds are involved. Tax is due in India as you offered services from India.  So whether the International Client pays via Credit Card, Bank Transfer, Paypal or any other means is not relevant. Even if the International Client pays you in a account outside India; it is still taxable in India. Yes, as you are Indian resident for Tax purposes, you have to pay Tax in India for the amount you have earned in Singapore. So essentially add the income from 1st April to Mid 2014 with the eq SGD earned in Singapore till 31st March 2015. Apply the tax brackets like you normally do, claim the exemptions you would normally do 80 C etc. As India and Singapore has a Dual Tax Avoidance Treaty, you can claim the portion the tax already paid in Singapore and pay only the balance. For example if the tax works out to be Rs 30, you have already paid Rs 20 in Singapore, you would have to pay only Rs 10 in India and mention that you have already paid Rs 20 to Singapore IRS. It is irrelevant whether you transfer the funds to India or not, the tax is applicable in the financial year you have earned. More on DTAA 1.What are the tax implications - income tax, gift tax, wealth tax etc. for the money credited in the NRO Account? As the funds are transferred by your wife to you, there is NO Income. Hence Income Tax rules don't apply. It would be treated as GIFT and come uder Gift Act. As per gift Act, one can transfer unlimited amount between close releatives. The defination of close relative as per Income Tax includes parents, spouse, siblings etc. The interest you earn in NRO account is taxable in India. 2.Can I transfer this money to my parents and would that attract any tax?. I understand my parents will have bear any tax based on income they earn on my transfer... Are there any tax implications for me? You can transfer this money to your parents. This will not be taxable to you. It will not be taxable to your parents as its Gift. Any income earned by your parents on this will ofcourse be taxable. 3.Can I move this money to NRE account and what is the process for that and how easy it is? Its best if you had your wife send funds into NRE account. Direct transfer as much as know is not allowed. Having said that, it is possible to transfer funds out of India via proper paperwork, there is also a limit [quite large] on the amount that can be transferred a year. Get a CA to help you with the paperwork. "The Option 2 in your answer is how most of the money is moved cross border. It is called International Transfer, most of it carried out using the SWIFT network. This is expensive, at a minimum it costs in the range of USD 30 to USD 50. This becomes a expensive mechanism to transfer small sums of money that individuals are typically looking at.   Over a period of years, the low value payments by individuals between certain pair of countries is quite high, example US-India, US-China, Middle-East-India, US-Mexico etc ... With the intention to reduce cost, Banks have built a different work-flow, this is the Option 1. This essentially works on getting money from multiple individuals in EUR. The aggregated sum is converted into INR, then transferred to partner Bank in India via Single SWIFT. Alongside the partner bank is also sent a file of instructions having the credit account. The Partner Bank in India will use the local clearing network [these days NEFT] to credit the funds to the Indian account.   Option 3: Other methods include you writing a check in EUR and sending it over to a friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically very nominal costs. Typically one month of timelines. Option 4: Another method would be to visit an Indian Bank and ask them to issue a ""Rupee Draft/Bankers Check"" payable in India. The charges for this would be higher than Option 3, less than Option 1. Mail this to friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically couple of days timelines for transfer to happen." "Says who? Or is this just something you *think* makes sense, because on first glance it does. Many studies show privatizing basic government functions like waste removal, prisons etc. to contractors ends up costing the government more.  Recent study that shows that its more expensive: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html  Specifically on government military private contractors, via this link, bottom of the page: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/contractors/ceff.html  Steven Schooner  Professor, The George Washington University Law School; expert on government contracting  ""I don't think there's any question that no one knows whether it's cheaper or not. One of the best studies we've seen on whether outsourcing saves money is the RAND study, which is now a few years old. And what the RAND study says is there's the potential for immense cost-saving in outsourcing. But it hasn't been proven yet.  There's a number of episodic studies since, but there has not been a compelling case made that government outsourcing, particularly this type of outsourcing, saves money.""  Full interview: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/interviews/schooner.html  He makes your point however that the savings is thought to come from savings in paying someone before and keeping them on payroll when we're not in a military activity that requires their services. No pension after, no payroll before. Thus the increase in compensation is a lot higher. However it doesn't mean its conclusive to show that it *does*save money."