The Lemon Fool

EAT (European Assets Trust) declares dividend: https://www.investegate.co.uk/article.a ... 700093201T

From the announcement:

The July gross dividend is increased to offset the element of Dutch withholding tax applicable.

I'm surprised to see a withholding tax here, within the EU. I know I've filled in explicit paperwork to avoid withholding tax being when paid from the US, who make it easy when an asset is held in a SIPP but harder in other circumstances.

Given that all my taxable assets are tax-sheltered in a SIPP or ISA, am I needlessly paying tax here, and perhaps on other offshore investments?

Most EU countries levy withholding taxes. Britain is the main exception.

European Assets' withholding tax is levied at a fairly low rate because a big part of the dividend is capital and is therefore not subject to withholding tax.

It shouldn't be a problem for long as The Netherlands is planning to abolish dividend withholding taxes from 1st January 2019. This is one of the main reasons why Unilever is planning to move its HQ to Rotterdam. The proposed change to the law has created a bit of a political fuss and it's quite possible that it won't pass if one of the parties in the Dutch coalition government strongly objects. Bloomberg has more details (link below):

https://www.bna.com/netherlands-likely- ... 982091567/

As far as I am aware it is not possible to reclaim withholding taxes in an ISA (but it is possible in a SIPP).

From/In the BNA Bloomberg link, I presume they meant "companies" not "countries"?!!

.....was engineered to protect countries like Unilever Netherlands and oil giant Shell Nederland B.V., which said the levy hurt their business.

When I looked at the HL factsheet, I noticed all the recent trades were sales (I'm not sure who is buying the sold stock!):
http://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-searc ... st-eur0.10

richfool wrote:When I looked at the HL factsheet, I noticed all the recent trades were sales (I'm not sure who is buying the sold stock!):
http://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-searc ... st-eur0.10

It's only a guess based on the price paid, from your link...

HL wrote:Trades priced above mid-price at the time a trade is placed are assumed buys, those priced below are assumed sells. Trades priced close to mid-price or declared late are shown N/A.