PinkDalek wrote:Bouleversee wrote:I wouldn't relish it, that's for sure. No time for all that. However, any future share purchases will be in ISAs, either mine or those of my family. What happens about the WHT then. Do the ISA managers reclaim it for you and is any tax paid on foreign divs. in ISAs?
On the latter, yes, withholding tax may be deducted on foreign dividends paid into ISAs. The tax benefits of ISAs not being recognised overseas.
For USA and Canadian holdings, forms such as the W-8BEN for the USA can be submitted such that the treaty rate (15%) can be applied before receipt as against the standard 30% (from memory). Some brokers support this in taxable accounts (I've no idea if they do in ISAs) and some don't.
The same procedures apply to ISAs as to ordinary accounts. Certainly, for US shares, you can get the witholding tax reduced from 30% to 15% if your broker supports this (e.g. HSDL do for US shares). Being in an ISA is irrelevant to foreign tax regimes.
I understand things should be different for SIPPS, here no witholding tax should be levied as it is recognised as a pension account by even foreign tax regimes. But again, this may depend on broker. I do not know, not having a SIPP.
PinkDalek wrote:As for Swiss withholding tax. I'm not aware of a similar procedure. Such that the 35% will be deducted in the first instance. It may then be down to the holder (as against the broker) to go down the route I've briefly outlined. The first stumbling block would be to get the ISA provider to come up with a tax certificate of deduction that satisfies the Swiss authorities. I know, from bitter experience, that these a difficult to obtain from some transaction only brokers in a taxable account.
Edit: Here's another view, this time from viewtopic.php?p=220305#p220305 at How Do I Invest:Urbandreamer wrote:A word of warning, foreign shares can cause problems. It's my understanding that using an ISA overcomes many of these. However as I understand it people often find it easier to pay the full dividend "withholding" tax on the likes of Nestle because the Swiss paperwork is so difficult.
I gather from previous comments (on TMF) that Spain is another problem and most just put up with the witholding tax on shares such as BNC.