Hello all,
So, used T212 to invest small amounts in a series of large European companies, testing the waters. I am a UK reisdent for tax purposes. The UK has tax treaties with many European countries to avoid double taxation of interests, dividents, and capital gains. The idea is that you are not taxed in the UK as well as in the country identified as the source of the income (the company’s base country).
From my conversations wtih T212 help / support, my understanding is that the tax treaties between the UK and european countries are ignored, T212 investors are not identified as UK residents for tax purposes when that is the case. The result is that tax is witheld in the European countries, instead of not being witheld so I can be taxed here, in the UK as should be the case. For example, Portuguese companies withold 35%, French companies withold 25%, etc etc etc.
When I asked T212 about this, they said I needed to contact the relevant authorities - i.e. each of the tax authorities or each of the European countries, so that the witheld tax could be released. This is of course a significant amount of paperwork if you are invested across all major European countries.
The implication is that T212 is not the right platform for direct investment in European companies - one should use UK-based ETFs or somesuch to get exposure.
I would like to know if anyone has a different analysis or if you have found an efficient way to deal with this problem.
Many thanks, Marie