India abolished estate duty in 1985 and imposes no inheritance, estate, or gift tax under current law. Succession is governed by religion-specific personal laws — the Indian Succession Act 1925 for Christians and Parsis (and as default), the Hindu Succession Act 1956 (with major 2005 amendments equalizing daughters’ rights in coparcenary property), and the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937 for Muslims. Probate is mandatory in the High Court jurisdictions of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras for wills covering immovable property in those territories.

Cross-border issues centre on the Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 (FEMA), the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) governing outbound remittance up to USD 250,000 per resident per financial year, and the substantial NRI (Non-Resident Indian) and PIO (Person of Indian Origin) populations across Canada, the US, the UK, and the Gulf. Inheritance of Indian property by NRIs requires RBI compliance, and inheritance of foreign property by Indian residents triggers capital-gains tax on subsequent disposition under the Income Tax Act 1961.

The memoranda in this series address the recurring fact patterns in Indian cross-border estate planning — including FEMA and LRS compliance for outbound succession transfers, NRI inheritance of Indian-situs assets, capital-gains liability on inherited foreign property, the religion-specific personal-law regimes, GIFT City IFSC structures for cross-border wealth, and the absence of estate-tax treaties with Canada and the United States.