Can someone please help me to understand my dividend payment? I just had my first dividend on the platform
I had 8 shares of Visa purchased before the ex-div date of 13 February, and the dividend was $0.30 per share. After 15% US tax I should have received $8 x 0.30 x 0.85 = $2.04. I received £1.57. Now 1.57/2.04 = 0.7696 = 1/1.2994 This does not correspond to the GBP/USD exchange rate of 0.7833 on 2 March (the official pay date) or 0.7815 on 4 March (today’s date). It appears closer to the exchange rate of 0.7665 which pertained on the ex-div date of 13 February.
For my tax reporting, HMRC expects me to use the exchange rate on the payment date of 2 March (not the ex-div date). What gives? How was $2.04 converted to £1.57? Obviously, I don’t care about a few pennies less on this small payment, but want to understand if there would be a significant effect if receiving much greater values of dividends.
Would it not be helpful if the Notification were a bit more informative? Perhaps
On 02.03.20 Visa Inc (V) paid an ordinary dividend of $0.30 per share. On 8 shares you have paid tax of ÂŁ0.28 and received ÂŁ1.57.
The message says “distributed $0.26 per share”. In fact, the gross amount was $0.30. So to be precise, 0.85 x 0.30 = 0.255. It can only risk confusion to have 0.255 appearing as 0.26 and without making clear this is the after tax amount.
I enjoy T212 very much, however, this is also my biggest issue with the platform.
In other platforms you’ll see the actual dividend amount received, then a negative transaction of dividends withheld (e.g. -15%). I would love something like this in T212. Additionally, transparency on the applied conversion rate would be great. This post gets a big +1 from me.
@Richard.W There’s indeed an issue with the FX conversion rate being used. We’re currently using the ex-date rate instead of the payment date one. We’ll upload a fix by Monday at the latest.
We’re also working on updating the “Dividends” tab in “History” so you could see a lot more information regarding the dividend payment - date, number of shares, gross amount, net amount & withholding tax.
Not all customers here are UK taxpayers , but for those who are, I am curious how you calculate the GBP value of your USD dividends for income tax. HMRC pages are surprisingly rather unclear. Do you (or your accountant) use
The spot rate on the official payment date.
The spot rate on the date the dividend hits your account (usually 2-5 days after 1, above).
Something else.
I have always assumed that 1 is correct. However, I have asked HMRC on Twitter. The reply is “Hi Richard, I’m not entirely sure about this but I’ve passed your query on to the relevant team. Please bear with me whilst I get a reply and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
I will report back here if I receive a helpful reply.
I haven’t paid any income tax for stocks & shares. But the principle of tax is that you are only taxed on what you recieved, not what you earned. So you don’t count it on the ex date because that is the point you earn it, but you don’t have it yet.
I always look at the official notes. HMRC note says “If you put any amounts on page F2 and page F3, convert the income into UK pounds using the exchange rate at the time the income arose.” But “arose” could mean date dividend was declared, or paid out by the company, or finally received in my account. 3 different days, the last being 2-5 days after the middle one. I am asking HMRC to clarify.
I asked what spot rate UK taxpayers need to use to convert USD company dividends to GBP when figuring tax liability.
Thanks for waiting. You should use the spot rate for the date the dividend is paid, not the day it reaches your account.
This is a nuisance when it comes to completing my annual tax return for HMRC, because the date that a dividend payment reaches my account is typically 1-5 days after the official payment date. However, it will help if Trading 212 does the currency conversion near as possible to the true payment date and tells me that date when providing dividend information. The present way you are doing - to use the exchange rate that pertained on the ex-dividend date - can be widely out in periods of volatile exchange rates, since the ex-dividend date is typically 2-6 weeks previously.
E.g. Trading 212 paid a recent Visa dividend into my account on 4 March, one day after the payment date. I received the exchange rate of the Ex-dividend date.
Declared 01-28-20,
Ex-Dividend 02-13-20,
Record 02-14-20,
Payable 03-03-20
@Richard.W We won’t be using the ex-date anymore. All future dividend conversions will be made using the payment date rate. That should reduce FX risk to a minimum.
I’m new to 212 but I have to say I’m impressed by how fast you guys are replying and trying to make improvements.
This might be just me not finding it but I realized that you cannot see information about the dividend yield about a stock on the web platform but only on the phone app. For someone like me which prefers using his PC rather than the phone would be great having the same information about a stock that i get on the app.
Welcome to our community! We introduced the company info feature quite recently and yes, it is still available only for mobile. We are currently doing a major redesign of the web platform and decided to implement the company info directly into the new version.
Hi everyone! I’m also kind of new to Trading212 and have noticed same problem about company’s info (including financials) being available only on phone app. Looking forward to see the feature on the web app as well as iPad version, since it’s much easier to analyze the info on bigger displays.
I wrote a big feedback on AppStore about it, thanks for response. Waiting for the update.
Cheers
, but for those who are, I am curious how you calculate the GBP value of your USD dividends for income tax. HMRC pages are surprisingly rather unclear. Do you (or your accountant) use
