Non-US Investing • Ireland ETF withholding taxes-bond/non US div

How much, if any, does Ireland domiciled ETFs pay the withholding taxes when they recieve,

1. Dividends from companies in countries other than US.?

From memory, and based on some old threads, past attempts to uncover that information produced numbers around 10-12% or so. It is hard to come up with a reliable number; fund providers never publish it directly.

If an Ireland domiciled ex-US ETF existed, you could get it from the ETF's annual report, as the ratio of tax paid by the ETF to dividends received by it. However, no such fund exists. So you can either assume that VXUS's (VXUS is Vanguard's US domiciled ex-US ETF) ratio of tax paid to dividends received is approximately representative of what an Ireland domiciled ETF would experience on these same stocks; that is, that all of the various <country>/Ireland tax treaties look more or less like the <country>/US tax treaties for dividend withholding tax. Or, you can use the annual report of an Ireland domiciled all-world ETF, such as VWRL, and then try to factor out the US part of the dividends received and the tax paid to give approximate non-US dividend and non-US tax paid, which would give you a non-US tax withholding number.

I think that's how the forum came up with this 10-12% number in the past.

2. Interests from bonds. US, and non-US?

For US bonds, should be zero. The US/Ireland treaty has a clause in it about interest, and in general the US does not tax bond interest paid to non-US recipients (both corporate and individual) in any case. For non-US bonds, don't know. As above, probably the ETF's annual report is the best place to try to find this number.

btw. Chat GPT's answer is->>Ireland-domiciled ETFs often benefit from tax treaties, reducing withholding taxes on dividends received from various countries, including the U.S. However, the specifics can vary based on the individual tax treaties and the structure of the ETF. It’s advisable to consult the specific ETF’s documentation or seek advice from a financial professional for accurate and up-to-date information.

Translation: Nobody knows. :-)

Statistics: Posted by TedSwippet — Tue Jan 16, 2024 6:08 am — Replies 1 — Views 84

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