# Interactive Brokers - annual tax trust distributions details



## aviator (13 January 2020)

Hi,

ASX listed trusts provide annual tax statements relating to distributions and taxable components for shareholders. However with Interactive Brokers, IB acts as a custodian so the actual customer does not receive these annual tax statements. How do other IB customers deal with this situation?

Thank you for any help


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## Sir Burr (13 January 2020)

I use this... https://www.sharesight.com/au/


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## aviator (13 January 2020)

Sir Burr said:


> I use this... https://www.sharesight.com/au/




I have Sharesight. It doesn't appear to help. It gives you ability to enter the tax components from the annual statement ... if you have it. IB does not provide the annual trust distribution statements. Let me know if I have missed something. Thanks.


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## Sharkman (15 January 2020)

if you don't get any answers here (i can't help you sorry as i invest in ASX listed trusts thru a CHESS broker, i only use IB for options trading) just log into IB account management and try using the chat facility there. i've had to ask them things about my account on several occasions, and i've found them to be quite helpful.


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## kid hustlr (15 January 2020)

Great question and one I've been wondering myself


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## aviator (15 January 2020)

Sharkman said:


> if you don't get any answers here (i can't help you sorry as i invest in ASX listed trusts thru a CHESS broker, i only use IB for options trading) just log into IB account management and try using the chat facility there. i've had to ask them things about my account on several occasions, and i've found them to be quite helpful.




Thanks Sharkman. I have sent an inquiry ticket to IB a couple of days ago ... still waiting for a response.

It looks like there are gaps in IB tax reporting for Australian customers i.e.,

a) No default annual fiscal tax reports for trust distributions showing taxable components to complete supplementary section items 13,18, 20 of the tax return.

b) The annual AU fiscal dividend report doesn't show non AU dividends e.g. US stocks/etfs... these must be sourced from the annual calendar tax reports which are not produced till late January past the standard ATO cutoff of October. With some effort this an be extricated from the AU fiscal activity report but it shouldn't be this hard.

All AU IB customers trading stocks must have faced these challenges and I guess have found some workaround.


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## freebird54 (15 March 2020)

Has anyone found an accountant that understands how IB works in Oz. 3 that I have used gave up and asked me to produce the figures which I do rightly or wrongly.

And has anyone looked at their free daily portfolio analyst report, since inception,  if you like.
Really has lots of information but does anyone understand the real picture?

It seems USA uses complex and different criteria than we do.


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## ghostdunks (16 March 2020)

aviator said:


> Thanks
> All AU IB customers trading stocks must have faced these challenges and I guess have found some workaround.




I got a reply back from IB help after I posted a similar question last year and their reply is they don't supply the information normally given in an annual tax statement for au-domiciled ETFs, and it's also impossible to calculate the various components that make up a distribution from any publicly available information.  Someone else mentioned sharesight but that's not foolproof as I've had issues with the accuracy of the numbers that sharesight provides previously and they've also said to double-check their calculated numbers against the ones provided by the annual tax statement, which can't be done.  Also they don't calculate the annual tax statement numbers for all ETFs, only the most popular ones(vanguard and iShares and some others) and are highly dependent on the information given to them from the ETF providers, which isn't guaranteed.

As a result, I don't hold any of my au-domiciled ETFs with IB as it'll just lead to problems during tax time. I do hold foreign-domiciled ETFs(VTS and VEU) with IB as it's easy to calculate the tax information for those etfs(foreign dividend income and foreign dividend income tax offsets)


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## blue0810 (16 March 2020)

ghostdunks said:


> As a result, I don't hold any of my au-domiciled ETFs with IB



For the Tax Statement I hold small amount with NABtade that use as reference for IB.
eg 10 GEAR on NABtrade.. 1000 GEAR on IB  .


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## ghostdunks (16 March 2020)

Yeah that's doable too, I considered that as well and just extrapolating from the tax statement from another broker/share registry but even that way isn't foolproof if you're buying in multiple transactions over multiple distribution periods.  ie. You get an annual figure from the annual tax statement issued by Computershare, but since it doesn't give a breakdown of the annual number by distribution, can't easily tell how much of each component to allocate to each different parcel bought/held.  Might be able to try and keep it in sync by buying and selling much smaller matching(relatively) amounts with nabtrade/etc but that results in added transaction costs.  And at the end of the day, it's still not an official tax document that is considered acceptable by ATO(eg. Like dividends statements, annual tax statements, etc) so not sure how the ATO will feel about that on an audit.  

Considered it and thought, not worth the hassle


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## DaLong (26 June 2020)

Hi, i've been generating a consolidated activity report through IB which shows the EOFY tax position.
The ones i've submitted to my accountant are the Fiscal Year Activity report (reports --> statements --> activity --> Select Fiscal Year) and Income statement for franking credit (Reports --> Tax --> Income Statement).
I'm holding direct shares and some australian and US listed ETFs.


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## Dettis (12 August 2020)

aviator said:


> Thanks Sharkman. I have sent an inquiry ticket to IB a couple of days ago ... still waiting for a response. It looks like there are gaps in IB tax reporting for Australian customers i.e.,
> 
> a) No default annual fiscal tax reports for trust distributions showing taxable components to complete supplementary section items 13,18, 20 of the tax return.
> 
> ...





are there any options for solving such issues?


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## DaLong (18 September 2020)

ghostdunks said:


> As a result, I don't hold any of my au-domiciled ETFs with IB as it'll just lead to problems during tax time. I do hold foreign-domiciled ETFs(VTS and VEU) with IB as it's easy to calculate the tax information for those etfs(foreign dividend income and foreign dividend income tax offsets)




I just came back to this thread as i looked a little deeper into the reporting of distributions from foreign ETFs. (https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/tax-on-offshore-etfs-loophole.35770/ ) . From your comments on VTS and VEU, i assume you simply report the distributions as foreign income without any consideration of the activity within the ETFs.

But i came to the same conclusion that IB is better suited for direct shares & foreign ETFs and Aussie ETFs are better transferred to a chess sponsored account.


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## Belli (18 September 2020)

Fascinating.  So with Australian domiciled ETFs through IB, investors have no way of knowing the AMIT cost base increase/decrease which may need to be taken into account on sale.


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## Nabtower24 (7 December 2020)

DaLong said:


> Hi, i've been generating a consolidated activity report through IB which shows the EOFY tax position.
> The ones i've submitted to my accountant are the Fiscal Year Activity report (reports --> statements --> activity --> Select Fiscal Year) and Income statement for franking credit (Reports --> Tax --> Income Statement).
> I'm holding direct shares and some australian and US listed ETFs.



Hi DaLong
Just came across your comment while looking for some help. I have an account with KOSEC who use Interactive Brokers and I have printed out the EOFY Statement from them but the number of shares that have been bought and sold are different from what the ATO has - have you had this issue?


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## DaLong (8 December 2020)

Hi,
I did not encounter this problem before, but I also haven’t checked against ATO records myself before. Where do you see the ATO share count ?
David


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## Nabtower24 (8 December 2020)

Hi David
If you go into MyGov account and into the ATO section if you are registered for it then you go into Tax and then into Manage and then Shares and Units Records. They have only been doing it seen 2017 and my previous accountant just went off the Activity Statement from Interactive Brokers. I have changed Accountants and they want to use the ATO records which are completely different and I don't understand why. For example, I have one share that IB said I purchased 7,400 whereas ATO has 4397!!!! But the dates are always the same. All the shares I buy and sell personally are correct. And of course, there is no record to access as there is no SRN or HIN through IB which I only just found out through this forum. Would be interested to know if you have the same issue. Regards Nicola


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## DaLong (20 December 2020)

Hi, i checked again about this today and i don't seem to have any entries in my MyGov/ATO account. IB has my TFN, but it doesn't seem to flow through.


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## Nabtower24 (20 December 2020)

Hi David 
Thank you for your response. Interesting that ATO don’t have any records for you. They have records for my buying and selling through IB and Self Weatlh. I will try to get to the bottom of it, and appreciate your input
Nicola


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