Who is Required to Disclose Foreign Assets in ITR?

Here is a list of things that why reporting foreign assets compulsory in the ITR: 

• As per the Black Money Act 2015, it is mandatory to report all financial assets in your ITR according to the specified schedules. Schedule FA includes foreign assets like bank accounts, real estate, etc, and Schedule FSI includes foreign sources of income like interest, dividends, and capital gains from the foreign sources. 
• This helps you avoid any penalties for not filing the foreign assets in the ITR, which can be up to 10 lakhs INR according to the Income Tax Department. 
• Through filing the foreign assets report, you can avail the benefits of DTAA and foreign tax countries, which help you to claim the tax paid in a foreign country. 
• Reporting the foreign assets in your ITR provides transparency and helps the government to track the global records of every taxpayer so that they can follow all the tax liabilities according to the Income Tax. 

The deadline for the foreign assets to be reported in the ITR is normally 31 July of the assessment year. However you report your foreign assets incorrectly in the ITR wrong or incorrectly, then you will get an opportunity to file a revised or belated return till 31 December without getting penalties.

Follow the given steps to declare the foreign assets in the ITR:

• First, you need to identify your foreign assets, like bank accounts, real estate, stocks, and other financial instruments. 
• Now, you need to start filling out your Schedule FA, in which you need to provide essential information, like name, address, currency code, zip code, financial institution address, and account number. 
• Once you have provided all the details, you need to enter the opening and closing account balance with the highest balance during the financial year in both Indian currency and foreign currency.
• Now, if you get any income earned from the revenue or any investment in an accounting year, then it should be disclosed in the foreign currency and INR.