The day of arrival is excluded, on the General Clauses Act principle that where a period runs from a day, that day is left out — that is what the Ahmedabad Tribunal held in Pradeep Kumar Joshi. There is no sourced authority on the day of departure. Explanation 1(a) to s.6(1) gives 182 days instead of 60 to an Indian citizen who leaves India for the purposes of employment outside India and to a member of the crew of an Indian ship, and Rule 126 additionally takes the voyage days themselves out of the count for a crew member on an eligible voyage.
Residence under s.6(1) is arithmetic, so the arithmetic is where the argument is. The basic tests are 182 days or more in the previous year, or 60 days or more in the previous year combined with 365 days or more across the four preceding years. The existing note in this library on residential status sets out those tests and the deemed-residence rule in s.6(1A); this note is about how the days are counted and who gets a different threshold.
On the boundary days, only one half is settled. In Pradeep Kumar Joshi v. ITO the Ahmedabad Tribunal held that while counting days of stay in India for considering the status of resident, the day of arrival has to be excluded. Taxmann's report of the order discloses the route: the General Clauses Act principle that when a period is computed using the word 'from', the first day is excluded. The Tribunal followed two earlier orders to the same effect, Manoj Kumar Reddy [2009] 34 SOT 180 (Bangalore) and Fausta C. Cordeiro [2012] 24 taxmann.com 193 (Mumbai). On these facts the Revenue's figure of 184 days fell below 182 once the arrival days came out, and the assessee was a non-resident. No source I could reach decides whether the day of departure is counted, and no High Court has ruled on either half. So a day-count reply should recompute on the arrival-day exclusion, and should not assume the departure day also drops out.
Explanation 1 to s.6(1) then relaxes the second test for two classes. Under clause (a), an Indian citizen who leaves India in the previous year as a member of the crew of an Indian ship, or for the purposes of employment outside India, reads 182 days for 60 days. Under clause (b), an Indian citizen or person of Indian origin who is outside India and comes on a visit to India also reads 182 days for 60 — but only if his total income other than income from foreign sources is Rs 15 lakh or less. Where that income exceeds Rs 15 lakh the substituted figure is 120 days, and a person who becomes resident only through that 120-day route is not ordinarily resident under s.6(6)(c).
The words 'for the purposes of employment outside India' are the ones officers press hardest, usually by pointing at a visa class or by saying the client went abroad to run his own business rather than to take a job. The Mumbai Tribunal in ACIT v. Nishant Kanodia, which this library holds separately, rejected that: the expression describes the purpose of the departure, which is to take up an economic occupation abroad, and there is no textual warrant for distinguishing between working for another and working for oneself.
Crew members get a second and separate relief. Explanation 2 to s.6(1) says that for the purposes of Explanation 1(a) the period of stay in India of an individual who is a citizen of India and a member of the crew of a foreign-bound ship leaving India shall be determined as prescribed, and Rule 126 is the prescription. Rule 126(1) provides that 'For the purposes of clause (1) of section 6, in case of an individual, being a citizen of India and a member of the crew of a ship, the period or periods of stay in India shall, in respect of an eligible voyage, not include the period computed in accordance with sub-rule (2).' Sub-rule (2) fixes that period as beginning on the date entered into the Continuous Discharge Certificate in respect of joining the ship for the eligible voyage and ending on the date entered into the Continuous Discharge Certificate in respect of signing off from the ship for that voyage. An 'eligible voyage' is a voyage by a ship carrying passengers or freight in international traffic which, if it originated at an Indian port, has a destination outside India, and if it originated outside India, has an Indian port as its destination. So the days between sign-on and sign-off on a qualifying international voyage are simply not days in India, even where the ship is in Indian waters — which is why the Continuous Discharge Certificate, and not the passport, is the primary document for a seafarer's day count.
Status is determined afresh for each previous year and is a question of fact. The Income-tax Act 2025, which restates the law from 1 April 2026, keeps residence in its own section 6 and the scope of total income in section 5, so the numbering does not move even though the text should be checked.
A residence dispute is usually decided by two or three days at the margin, which means the counting convention decides the size of the tax base before any computation begins. It is also the rare tax argument that costs nothing to run: the passport, the boarding passes and, for a seafarer, the Continuous Discharge Certificate either support the count or they do not. Getting the crew exclusion under Rule 126 right is worth more than any other point for a merchant navy client, because without it a seafarer who spends most of the year at sea can be counted as resident on days when the ship was alongside in India.
The trustees of my settlement are being assessed on the trust income. The department has now also included the same income in my own assessment under s.64. Does s.161(2) stop it?
My closing stock is worth more than it cost me. Does the rise in value get taxed, and does it matter that the goods were lying outside the place where I trade?
The AO has taxed my advance licence and DEPB benefits in the year I exported. Is that the right year?
A discretionary trust distributed income to me during the year and the trustees have already been assessed on it. Can the Assessing Officer also assess me?
Our family business is run entirely outside India, but two coparceners are partners in Indian firms with family money. Does that make the family resident in India?
I am resident in India but my rubber estate and my business are in Malaysia. The treaty says that income may be taxed there. Can India tax it as well?
I credited commission in my books at the contracted rate but agreed during the year to take a lower rate. Am I taxed on the higher figure?
We are an NBFC. The AO wants interest on a non-performing loan taxed on accrual even though we have not recognised it. Can he do that?
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