Comments on: How Withholding Taxes Affect the Choice of International Investments?

By: Should You Buy US-listed ETFs? « Canadian Couch Potato

Should You Buy US-listed ETFs? « Canadian Couch Potato — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:48:28 +0000

[...] is an important consideration that even many advisors are clueless about. Canadian Capitalist wrote an excellent post on the topic last [...]

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:55:11 +0000

@Dim: US withholding taxes are only applicable to dividends, not capital gains.

By: Dim

Dim — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:30:25 +0000

Does the US Withholding Tax apply to dividend payments only, or does it apply to capital gains generated through active trading too? For instance, if I buy a stock at $10 and sell at $15, is there any tax withheld on the $5 profit (if no dividend is paid)?

Thanks!

By: David

David — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:58:17 +0000

I raised this issue with my financial advisor and got the following response: “.BUT I phoned the fund company…currently XSP and XIN will be same withholding tax whether held in an RSP and NON RSP and because the withholding tax is at a fund level instead of an individual level, you will not see any withholding tax being broken down in an RSP or a non RSP as the fund withholds it from a fund level in an RSP and NOn RSP thus unlike an individual stock since we would not mail you out(nor would any be produced) what the withholding tax is in a NON RSP you could not claim any back…thus as Barclays told me there is no difference on which account its held at”

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:59:45 +0000

What about the currency exchange rate spread?
If you pay >1% each time you buy or sell a $US ETF, rebalancing becomes really expensive compared to the MER difference.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:11:09 +0000

with respect to US ETFs any US 15% wt is not fully recovered by Canadians through the foreign tax credit system – it’s prorated in proportion to your foreign income/can income..I think.

By: Anh

Anh — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:41:10 +0000

Yet, another follower of your blog CC…
Is it safe to assume that it’s advisable to hold my U.S. or foreign stocks in RRSP and put my Canadian dividend paying stocks outside my RRSP so I can claim the Canadian dividend tax credit?

By: Darryl

Darryl — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:34:32 +0000

Thats good news for RRSP’s. I expect that this would still be an issue for TFSA’s?

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:33:01 +0000

@Vlad: I personally hold VTI, VEA, VWO and owned US stocks in RRSP accounts. There is no withholding tax on dividends due to the special treatment that RRSPs receive in the Canada US Tax Treaty. Thanks for confirming this.

By: Vlad155

Vlad155 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:48:53 +0000

“I can confirm there is no U.S withholding tax on dividends paid by US based ETFs in an RRSP. I just got a dividend payment from an Ishares ETF I own (DVY) at the end of March. The full U.S. dividend amount (converted to Canadian dollars) was paid into my RRSP accountl.”

http://forums.canadianbusiness.com/thread.jspa?threadID=7679&start=25