Tax residency

I think, you are NON- RESIDENT INDIAN, liable to be taxed in INDIA for all your universal incomes.

You will be treated as NRI, your global income liable to be taxed in India subject to provisions of DTAA

Okay sounds a bit confusing. It will be helpful if you could explain how. I'm not a tax resident as I will not be in India for 182 days but liable to be taxed for all global incomes. Is it that if you are not a tax resident in any country you get taxed in the country where you are a citizen.

My previous question still remains..is physical presence the criteria for counting days. In that case, if I curtail my personal visit and remain in Singapore for 183 days can I avoid paying tax in India?

The Residential Status of an Individual is to be determined on the basis of period of stay of the taxpayer in India and is computed separately for each year. If an individual satisfies any one of the following conditions, he is said to be Resident in India for that financial year. The conditions are:-
He is in India for a period of 182 days or more in that financial year
OR
He is in India for 60 days or more during that financial year and has been in India for 365 days or more during 4 previous years immediately preceding the relevant financial year.
If any one of the above conditions is satisfied, the individual is said to be resident in India. However, if none of the conditions is satisfied, he is said to be a Non Resident Indian (NRI).
However, there is one exception to above rule. In case of an individual, who is a citizen of India and who leaves India in any financial year for the purpose of employment outside India, the 2nd condition stated above shall not be applicable and only the 1st condition of 182 days or more would be applicable.
Citizenship of a country and residential status are separate concepts. A person may be an Indian national/citizen but may not be a resident in India. On the other hand, a person may be a foreign national/citizen but may be a resident in India.
For the purpose of computing the period of 182 days for the determination of residential status, the day he enters India and the day he leaves India should both be treated as stay in India. However, in borderline cases where stay in India is very close to 182 days, his stay in India has to be calculated on hourly basis and a total of 24 hours will be taken as 1 day.

If you have paid taxes in Singapore on income earned there, then you have to check the provisions of DTAA between India and Singapore on tax treatment of such income. Pls note that you can apply Provisions of DTAA or income tax act whichever is more beneficial to you.

So let me get this straight.

Assuming I stay in Singapore for 185 days (would like to be a bit safe and not go into hourly calculations), which also means I curtail my India visit, I will be a tax resident in Singapore.

I don't satisfy condition 1 above for India tax resident, since between apr 16 to Mar 17 I will not be in India for 182 days. Condition 2 does not apply as I'm leaving the country for employment.

As per DTAA, Employment Income is taxed in the country in which employment is exercised. Which would mean my income in India between apr - June 16 is taxed in India for AY 17-18 and my Singapore income between June 19 to Dec 31 2016 is taxed in Singapore.

Please confirm if this is right. Thanks.

Absolutely correct. 👍

Fantastic. Thank you.