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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

Unknown country of foreign dividends from non-ISA investment funds

mrodent
Posts:3
Joined:Wed Mar 16, 2016 4:53 pm
Unknown country of foreign dividends from non-ISA investment funds

Postby mrodent » Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:11 pm

In 2018-19 I had several non-ISA investment accounts on 4 different investment platforms (Hargreaves Lansdown, Lloyds Investment, etc.). Although these are all accumulation funds HMRC has managed to classify the dividends issued by the companies in the funds as taxable, i.e. subject to the dividend tax. Some are UK, but on the CTCs (consolidated tax certificates) some are said to be foreign.

Just been completing the relevant section of my tax return. The problem I have is that most of these foreign dividends paid are paid on funds (like Vanguard) where it's not obvious which country the foreign tax comes from ... it's even possible they might come from different countries.

The CTCs for these various platforms don't say which country these foreign dividends come from... provisionally I have just assumed "US", but there is an option at the bottom of the drop-down list (on the HMRC self-assessment page) saying "ZZZ none of the above". NB all the CTCs give the figures in £, and the figure for "tax paid in the foreign country" is £0.

What am I meant to do with these sums (typically a couple of hundred quid for each platform), if I can't find out where the dividends come from? Does HMRC care much about me getting this right, given that I'm not reclaiming any foreign tax relief?

bluetaxi
Posts:10
Joined:Wed May 09, 2012 3:35 pm

Re: Unknown country of foreign dividends from non-ISA investment funds

Postby bluetaxi » Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:36 pm

Hi

If you ask the investment platform they should be able to provide you with the information. In my experience a lot of these funds are either domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg. If you are unable to ascertain the country destination then you should use the code ZZZ as you have identified. In this situation you should also put a note in the
'Any other information' box, box 19 on page TR 7 of the tax return to state what you have done and why. More importantly, if the funds have reporting status you will need to establish if there is any excess re portable income (ERI) to declare. ERI is in addition to any cash distributions which you may have received during the
tax year. ERI is treated as income and is treated as received by you on the Fund Distribution Date (six months after the last day of the fund’s reporting period). This means you may need to refer to the previous Report to Participants when you complete your current year tax return. If the CTC already shows the ERI, then great, but again in my experience the platforms you mention do not provide this detail.

Best of luck.


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