NRI sold property in India

[THYAGARAJAN KALYANASUNDARAM]

Dear Experts,

One of my client who is an NRI sold property to a person resident in India without disclosing that he is an NRI. Subsequently the buyer deducted TDS u/s 194IA at 1% and remitted the balance to the seller. The sale happened in the month of May 2015. Now, the client wants to stay in India for a period of 182 days or more so as to get the position of Resident Indian and avoid tax. He, being an Indian Origin will be able to avoid Income tax consequences by staying post transfer in India? or whether we have to consider only individual status prior to transfer taking place.

Kindly help me solving the issue.

[Surender Gupta]

As per my understanding of the provisions, the Year in which transfer took place must be the year in which it is to be seen whether the assessee was resident or not. The status of any other year may not be relevant.

AI Summary

Residential status for tax purposes determines taxability of a property transfer; assess status in the year of transfer.
The assessee's residential status for income tax purposes must be determined with reference to the year in which the transfer occurred; only the status in that year governs the tax treatment of the transfer and subsequent years' status is not relevant.