Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
Thanks Bob_L - somewhere along the line we discovered that there is some reason that banks who act as brokers are unable to utilise this tax treaty. I don't know what the reason is, but it is obviously the banks who are getting the dividends through with tax already taken off. It's something about the treaty that applies to brokers but not banks, but I know not what.
Financial Ombudsman is a joke. I had a clear cut case against Homeserve some years back and it was a year of stress and arguments to finally be told that they agreed with me but couldn't help.
Adv11 – I think the type of account is irrelevant. Your argument is that there is a US-UK treaty which states that as a UK Investor you should only pay 15%. You know of other holders who are with HL & ii for example, where withholding tax is 15%. Your question to them is, “You believe that you are being financially disadvantaged when there is a Tax Treaty in place where you are only obliged to pay 15%?”
You could also ask who is financially benefiting from your additional 15%? I’m sure the IRS don’t require it
Thirdly, you are being treated financially unfairly compared to other UK Investors, if they will not resolve, you can state that you will go to the Financial Ombudsman. I personally don’t believe that they have a leg to stand on
Thanks for getting back to me @Bob_L - and I am pleased that you are getting this sorted with HSBC. I'll read the irs links later. I spent hours on their website last year and just ended up with a headache.
I don't think I will get any further with Halifax/I-web - I got compensation of the tax I had paid but had to agree that I realised that future dividends would be taxed at 30 percent, and so it was my choice whether to continue with the investment on that basis. It isn't Halifax/I-web who stop any tax - they receive the dividend net of 30 percent withholding tax from Computershare. I don't really have the technical knowledge to argue this anymore, or indeed any place to go. DGOC told Computershare to sort this out for me, Computershare refused to help because my shares are in a nominee account, and my broker compensated me but made the future terms clear.
Basically I now only invest in quarterly dividend companies and have 70+ investments in these plus a few AIM oil companies just for a bit of a gamble. I'm almost at break-even with DGOC, so I'm going to reduce my holding and treat it more of a trading stock in future, there are plenty of companies I want to top up.
@MrG123 - Degiro look interesting, but a bit complicated at first viewing. I certainly don't want to change brokers - I have done that a few times over the years and it's never simple. I like to have all my investments in one place and am happy with I-web for the price they charge. It takes a long time to argue things with them, talking to the correct person is impossible, but at least I always get somewhere, which I never did with HL who just will never discuss anything - they have such a superior attitude, they must always be right. I have a few shares with another broker which I can't wait to get rid of, and another two accounts I no longer use. I'll certainly have a more in depth look at Degiro though.
MrG123 – It’s not so much as a broker issue, but who they use as the custodian of the shares, in HSBC’s case HSS. I’m assuming that any broker can use the same?
I opened an HL account a month or so ago and added DGOC into it to test whether 15 or 30% would be withheld. The fact that only 15% is withheld gave me additional evidence that HSBC & HSS had got it wrong. My portfolio is now in the process of moving from HSBC after a year of raising this issue
So its a broker issue and not a problem with DGOC. No issues with my dividend via Degiro. Easy solution for you is to change brokers.
This was my main argument, the US_UK Tax Treaty
I have also done some digging on the IRS web site and have attached 2 links and noted the key points (in my opinion) from Article 10 Dividends
2. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/united-kingdom-uk-tax-treaty-documents
3. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/uk.pdf
a. UNITED STATES-UNITED KINGDOM INCOME TAX CONVENTION
b. ARTICLE 10 Dividends
c. (2) (b) (ii) in all other cases, the tax charged by the United States on payment of a dividend to a resident of the United Kingdom shall not exceed 15 per cent of the gross amount of the dividend
adv11 – Received the following from HSBC today, they acknowledge there is a problem with the 30% tax as shown below. My argument with them was around the US-UK dividend treaty and my entitlement to pay only 15%. HSS are the custodian of the shares for HSBC, if they are all custodian for your broker, you may be in for a pleasant surprise.
The HSS tax team have now come back to say that the assets are held in a UK custody account and tax is paid at source, hence the 30% rate. The team haven’t taken into consideration underlying client tax status and so we’re reviewing whether this needs to move to a US custody account and preferential rates applied. There’s a bit of paperwork to get through on this, and clearly we’ll need to consider financial remediation. Still not resolved yet unfortunately but we are gaining traction.
https://media-prod.ii.co.uk/s3fs-public/pdfs/rates_and_charges_uk.pdf
Is a good link to check ii ISA charges. I’d definitely recommend moving, I’ve never had any issues with them, they always send through the correct amounts. There are 3 different monthly charges, which can get your dealing down to £3.99 a trade and includes some ‘Free’ trade credit out of your monthly charge.
Recommend keeping these in a SIPP if possible, dividends are tax free and you receive all 11% (as I did today)
No problem, just wanted to share some of the experience I had trying to not suffer the 15% WHT!
I don't think the banks are allowed to charge for a customer choosing to transfer their ISA to another provider, not sure about other ISA providers and what they can charge. Also, clearly lots of other share trading providers out there beyond ii, so people need to do own research on costs/services etc. I don't really post anything on share chat rooms or other social media, hence no posts, but just felt for people on here going in loops like yourself but not getting a clear answer from anyone, hence signed up to give my experience! Best of luck to all.
Thanks @JDCBC you are very knowledgeable for someone new to these forums. Actually, I am with I-web (Halifax/Lloyds) but it's the same problem as HSBC of course. I agree, Computershare don't know who I am, but DGOC pay them a lot of money and asked them to help me find a way round this problem. Even if their advice was as good as what you gave, it would have been a help, but they offered absolutely nothing.
I am otherwise happy with I-web at £5 a trade and no other charges at all, and like to keep my investments in one place. I had an account with HL and found them terrible, taking into account their charges, and have one with X-O which is a very basic service. So I'll stick as I am for now and see how it goes. Currently my investment in DGOC gives a very acceptable 8% yield, but avoiding the 30 % tax would make the yield 11%
I am sure there must be some charge from a bank to transfer an ISA to a new provider, although I can't find it in the T&C's.
I could certainly have done with your insight last year when I was finding it amazingly difficult to find out what the problem was.
Hi, I think that is the problem, Computershare probably don't even know you exist. Your holding of DGO shares in in with hundreds of thousands of other DGO shares bought by other HSBC customers held in "HSBC Nominee Trading Account xxxxxxx". That is all Computer share see, they don't know that HSBC are allocating x number of those shares to you as the beneficial owner in their internal share dealing system. So Computershare are ignoring you as there isn't much they can do without HSBC telling them all your details and HSBC aren't going to do that because it isn't how they operate their share trading system. I transferred my ISA from HSBC to ii just by filling in the online forms, didn't have to sell and buy the shares again, it just all transferred across in about 4 weeks very easily. Then ii will hold them in your name and Computershare will know who you are. ii can handle the W8BEN. ii will charge £9.99 per month for this service for managing an ISA as it is a more dedicated service for the reasons stated above, so depending on your divi income the 15% WHT may be more or less than the £9.99 per month cost, so it may be worth it. Hope that helps.
Thanks for comments everyone. Firstly we have a financing RNS this morning that isn't showing here.
As regards the dividend tax, yes I did know this, sorry if I didn't make myself clear. When I last spoke with Teresa at DGOC she told me that she had instructed Computershare, who handle the dividends on behalf of DGOC to investigate this and find a way to solve the problem. I since contacted Computershare UK who totally ignored me, and the Computershare US who passed it on to the UK branch, who again couldn't be bothered. So just going to update DGOC that nothing has been done. Any other solution would cost me money one way or another as they are in my ISA, although it would be worth it longer term I guess.
Thanks JDCBC, I'm having exactly this problem with HSBC and have been waiting 2 weeks for a response. As an aside, the 15% tax is part of the US-UK Tax Treaty. If the IRS only want 15%, what happens to the additional 15% we are paying and why does HSBC not highlight this issue!?
Thanks JDCBC, I'm having exactly this problem with HSBC and have been waiting 2 weeks for a response. As an aside, the 15% tax is part of the US-UK Treaty. If the IRS only want 15%, what happens to the additional 15% we are paying and why does HSBC not highlight this issue!?
Yes it’s not dgoc’s fault it’s your broker. I use also use ii and never have such issues.
hi adv11, I don't think this is DGO's fault.
I think it is because you hold the shares in a bank share trading account. I had my DGO shares in my HSBC share trading account and they said they cannot apply the W8BEN to an individual's account as they hold all the shares in large nominee trading accounts and not directly in your name. I transferred my shares to ii, sent them a W8BEN and have just received the divis with only 15% WHT deducted. I think you may need to transfer to a dedicated share trading business, and maybe check first they can apply a W8BEN to your account as they hold them in your name as beneficiary. Hope that helps
As usual, 30 percent tax stopped by I-web/Halifax/Lloyds in my ISA. Think I will have to drop DGOC another e.mail to let them know they haven't solved this problem yet.