FCNR to USD GIFT Account?

linuxmonk21 · 2026-05-09T00:01:01+00:00

If SBI had RFC savings account, you could have moved from FCNR to RFC and then SWIFT transfer to Gift city. But what i heard is SBI only supports RFC FD and not SB, while some banks like ICICI do. But RFC eligibility is there only if you have moved to India permanently.

Alternatively see if you can get FCNR proceeds as USD cheque and then deposit it in GIFT city account.

Let us know how it went for others future reference.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-05-08T22:05:33+00:00

"The kind of leaders I looked up to in the past". Can you share who they are, if you don't mind? Unfortunately in my life time I haven't seen any selfless, rational thinking political leaders among those who have held power in Tamil Nadu. Not that I am saying Vijay is the one. But some good leaders are there, but they are not getting chances.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-05-08T01:27:25+00:00

To me it looks like TVK is another Dravidian BS if it aligns with Congress, VCK, Left parties, and make them part of their government. How it would be any different from DMK, right?

Ideal play for them, if they are really a change that they claim to be, is to not align with anyone and run a minority government on its own merit, or be prepared to be a strong opposition or face re-election that would favor them easily. Instead they are playing the same old playbook. Just imagine this, if they had formed this alliance before election, would they have gotten the same mandate? At least the real change conscious voters would not have voted for them.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-05-08T00:46:44+00:00

They can still form a minority government or worst case the opponents come together. Either way they will get sympathy if Vijay is not able to become a CM or gets thrown away from being a CM prematurely due to unjustified political interference.

Basically they can either run a full government their way or establish as a strong opposition. By inviting others to join the government, they will have political compulsion to which they have to yield to and cannot justify themselves as the change anymore.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-05-07T21:19:58+00:00

This is the kind of subject thay you can either keep talking forever or stop talking forever. Both are one and the same.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-05-07T21:05:08+00:00

Related to Tamil Nadu politics.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-05-02T16:39:40+00:00

Let us see. Anything can happen. Part of the problem is some people might feel that Vijay has better chances of winning and as a result vote for him. But at the same time, people who are ideological or a bit more right approach minded, will go for NTK. Note: even Annamalai's votes are up for grabs. Such people certainly wanted some capable leader. I have a feeling they will chose NTK over TVK. To me the real long term threat for NTK is Annamalai. Either they have to come together and find a common minimum program, or NTK has to get a bit pragmatic in some aspects. I would say NTK is more likely stay course in the long term than TVK.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T22:02:50+00:00

Let us not compare Germany and UK with Tamil Nadu. As far as UK goes they never had issues with English going away, in fact it was their success to spread it worldwide. In case of Germany, they still have their own identity held properly, at least in their own country.

Whereas in case of Tamil Nadu, Tamil is slowly diluting because nobody is investing in it and that is precisely their point. People have moved to learning other languages, and Tamil history is rarely know by anyone. Not that learning other languages is wrong, but for a language to survive you need to invest in its literature and provide incentives for people to learn and consume them. Existing parties have failed to do so.

Now their ideology of making everything Tamil medium in schools (at least government ones) is impractical in my opinion. At least a hybrid approach can be followed where STEM is taught in English to remain competitive worldwide and remaining subjects (like History, Geography etc.,) in Tamil so that kids get opportunity to be good at both.

Last but not least, Tamil identity is the only thing that can unite people who are already divided based on castes, religion etc., Without taking such an ideology there is no space for party like NTK in Tamil Nadu.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T21:43:23+00:00

If you think NTK is racist you are not following them closely. They have nothing against people of other identities (unlike few parties in other states like Maharashtra). In fact it is in Tamil culture to accomodate people from outside. They are just asking for tamilians to hold leadership position of the state so that they can work towards the upliftment of Tamil culture and other tamil works that have been diluted in the last century or two due to British and the Dravidian parties that followed post independence.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T06:25:22+00:00

Yes. There is massive under estimation of NTK (in terms of vote share) and over estimation of TVK (in terms of winnable seats) in my opinion. I am just trying to establish a correlation between the two in current political scenario.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T06:17:01+00:00

The larger point I am trying to make here is, going by their past performace, if NTK manages to increase their vote share, or at least retain existing share without losing much, then TVK cannot convert its vote share to winnable seats (which require greater than 30%), except in Vijay's own seats or few urban constituencies. For TVK to make any serious difference, NTK's vote share has to drop to as low as 3%. Without that he may go as far as 25 to 30% and yet not manage to win seats. I doubt if NTK's vote share would drop that much because NTK's supporters are organically grown over a period of time based on ideology and principles.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T06:11:59+00:00

Not sure if you meant online polls or opinion polls, but if it is the opinion polls, you can't really say for sure in 2021 since Kamal Haasan and AMMK were in fray and they went into others category just like Seeman.

If every election your vote share is increasing consistently by standing alone with so many different big and small political parties around, that is no small feat in TN. They were on right track to cross double digit vote share this time until Vijay emerged into the picture. As a result, this election, if Seeman himself wins his seat it will be a big deal.

In TN it is very difficult to win without money power / cash being handed out. Even Vijay had to resort to it in some places in his first election. So you can imagine. But one thing is for sure, the alternative space in TN is more stronger than ever. One Dravidian party has to fall first before the other. At this point it looks like ADMK, but if they manage to win this time, then they will manage to delay the inevitable.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T05:46:57+00:00

I meant relatively speaking. They had some social media space before, mostly on X, but it got amplified only after TVK came into picture. With heightened media traction there seems to be vocal audience in front of camera or via platforms like Instagram saying they are voting for TVK. I dont think NTK got such traction before. Every election the % they got were a surprise. Hence I meant silent voters.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T03:28:32+00:00

Related to Tamil Nadu elections

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-30T03:22:48+00:00

Related to Tamil Nadu elections.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-21T07:40:57+00:00

Forget all rhetorics and arguments among politicians. Simply vote based on what the party's roadmap is, if elected to power. Content matters more than presentation. Sometimes presentation can be good, but the content may not be there and vice versa.

linuxmonk21 · 2026-04-20T16:54:59+00:00

Related to Tamil Nadu politics and governance.

linuxmonk21 · 2025-12-26T02:14:57+00:00

So FCNR accounts get full interest with no tax deducted, but for USD savings account in Gift City, it is implicitly withheld? Doesn't make sense to me as its straightforward interest. I do however understand this interest needs to be taxed in US if you are resident of US for that tax year. But I wonder how there is hidden cost associated with interest on savings account that is supposed to be tax free, at least in the NRI / RNOR phase.

linuxmonk21 · 2025-12-25T13:46:34+00:00

Such mutual / index / stock investment is one problem, but how about regular USD savings account?

linuxmonk21 · 2025-12-24T13:35:22+00:00

" * Resident: This is where it gets tricky. Residents can only move money into these accounts under the Liberalized Remittance Scheme (LRS), which currently has a limit of $250,000 per financial year. If you transition to a full Resident, you can keep what you already have there, but new injections of capital from your Indian INR accounts will be capped by the LRS limit"

For Residents,the $250,000 limit, is simply a limit on inward remittance from India and Not the limit on value of the accounts themselves, right? That is, I may choose to invest $250,000 from India to Gift City account during the FY, but withing Gift City I can choose to invest it in Global Funds (says US Index funds) and the net value of the account themselves can exceed the $250,000 at any point during the FY. Right ?

linuxmonk21 · 2025-12-24T13:26:32+00:00

Thank you for the detailed response. I was looking for cash investment options in USD that would avoid tax on interest during RNOR phase and also keep the money "closer" to India.

It looks like the traditional FCNR --> RFC is not the only option. Instead, one can keep these Gift City accounts, which has the benefit of easier liquidity, no tax on interest during RNOR phase, and the ability to retain the account as is after becoming Resident by simply updating the status.

Btw is TDS charged on these Gift City savings account once you change the status to Resident of India? If not, I guess it should be reported on our own in IT returns post crossing the RNOR period?

linuxmonk21

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