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Expert insights on cross-border payments, global trade, and international finance.
Section 195 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 required you to deduct tax at source before paying a non-resident anything chargeable to tax in India. That obligation still exists. The section number does not. For any payment where the earlier of credit or payment falls on or after 1 April 2026, the governing provision is Section 393(2), Table Sl. No. 17 of the Income-tax Act, 2025. Same duty, same rates, different reference, and the reference is the part that bites, because the filing utility validate
Customs duty is the tax Indian Customs charges on goods crossing the border. On imports you pay it before your cargo is released, no payment, no Out of Charge, no delivery. It is calculated on the assessable value of the shipment, not the invoice value, and it is almost never a single tax. That last point is where most importers lose money. You budget for "20% duty," the Bill of Entry lands at 44%, and the difference was sitting in three separate line items you didn't know were stacked on top o
Form 15CA is the declaration you file before sending money out of India to a non-resident. Form 15CB is the chartered accountant's certificate that supports it when the payment is taxable and crosses ₹5 lakh in a tax year. Together they are how the Income Tax Department sees a foreign remittance before your bank releases it. Both forms have been renumbered. Under the Income-tax Rules, 2026, Form 15CA is now Form No. 145 and Form 15CB is now Form No. 146. The rule that governs them moved from Ru
A merchanting trade transaction is a trade where an Indian entity buys goods from a seller in one foreign country and sells them to a buyer in another foreign country, with the goods shipping directly between those two countries and never entering India's Domestic Tariff Area. The Indian party is a principal, not a broker, it takes title, takes the risk, and keeps the margin between the import leg and the export leg. Merchanting trade is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India under FEMA, and bot
OPGSP stands for Online Payment Gateway Service Provider, the arrangement that let Indian exporters and importers collect and send small cross-border payments through an intermediary tied to a bank, rather than through their own wire transfer. It was never a licence. An OPGSP held no authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India. It worked by entering a standing arrangement with an Authorised Dealer Category-I bank, and that bank carried the compliance. That framework no longer exists. If you ar
A high sea sale is the sale of imported goods while they are still in transit, after the shipment has left the foreign port and before it is cleared for home consumption in India. Ownership passes by endorsing the bill of lading to the new buyer, who then becomes the importer of record, files the Bill of Entry in their own name and pays the customs duty and IGST. Two things about high sea sales changed after most of the standard explanations were written, and both change what you actually do. S
