W-8BEN on your own & 30% withhold

[Frank]

@yakari

And did you check Swissquote?

Didn’t call them.
But a knowledgeable guy from Postfinance told me that they used to provide W-8BEN until 2015 (when they operated through BCV, which is TradeDirect), but from 2015, Postfinance e-trading is backed by Swissquote, and Postfinance doesn’t provide W-8BEN (so I suspect also Swissquote doesn’t, i.e. they’re not QI). But we need to 2ble check

[Tino]

Thanks. I’ll read the complete post… is long.
Is really a bit messy all the tax treatment by the different countries/brokers … Hope one day is going to more unified!
Regards.

[Frank]

@yakari

*Edit: only the the us part of the etf is taxed at 30% (for VT that would be 55.7%; for WVRL 55.0%): so actually the taxation is:

I think that 30% withhold (not tax) applies to all the VT (not only to the US part), for the reason that VT is a US ETF.

The case in which it applies only to US stocks inside the ETF (55.7%) is for non-US ETFs. And in that case the tax is 15%, paid by the ETF, so not reclaimable.

Does it make sense?

[nugget]

@Frank

so I suspect also Swissquote doesn’t [provide W-8BEN]

Swissquote did , at least a while ago.

[OogieBoogie]

This question was raised some times and according to that Swissquote is QI.

US vs. IE based funds if you dont qualify for W8BEN

All Swiss brokers I know of (that is CS, Migrosbank and SQ) are Qualified Intermediaries. So for most us (domicile CH (i.e. with treaty) and QI) US takes 15%, this is “nicht rückforderbar” but at least it gets “angerechnet” by Switzerland (due to treaty) Switzerland takes another 15% (“zusätzlicher Steuerrückbehalt USA”) which gets refunded in the same way as Verrechnungssteuer, if u declare correctly. I would like to know which Swiss Broker is not “respectable” / a QI, cos I don’t know of a…

[Daniel]

This is correct to my knowledge as well.