Many shareholders hold Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) as they provide a high level of dividends, partly because they have an obligation to distribute most of their income to shareholders as Property Income Dividends (PIDs). These are taxed in a different way to other dividends. They incur a tax charge of 20% which is like a withholding tax. But if you hold the shares in a SIPP then the SIPP can reclaim the 20% tax from HMRC.
I hold two SIPPs. One operator routinely refunds the REIT tax but the other one (operated by Curtis Banks) appears to have no system to do so. I have had to chase them more than once about outstanding refunds going back several years. Currently they are saying that they have to wait until the year end before they can submit a reclaim because they cannot submit claims of less than £5,000 during the year.
Shareholders who have REITs in their SIPP portfolios need to keep an eye on such refunds otherwise you could be losing hundreds if not thousands of pounds in missing tax claims.
Yesterday, among other activity by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he issued a letter indicating that despite demands to revise the calculation of the Retail Price Index (RPI) he is putting off consent for any change until at least 2025 with consultation on when it might be implemented. See the letter here: https://tinyurl.com/y3muwr3g
There is of course strong opposition from some people to any change in the calculation of RPI. For example it might impact the returns on Index Linked Gilts that use it as it is generally seen as giving slightly higher figures than other inflation indices. But other people would welcome a change because it affects the cost of rail fares for example. It does appear wise to me to have extensive consultation on such a change before it is implemented, particularly where it affects people who have purchased investments such as index linked gilts or national savings certificates on the basis of the current formula.
The Chancellor, Savid Javid, did of course deliver a Spending Round review document to the Commons yesterday – you may have missed it among all the Brexit debates. In summary it commits to higher expenditure on schools, the NHS, the police, on social care, on defence and on other crowd-pleasing measures – a total of £13.8 billion. This should help to boost the economy, and might be seen as a typical pre-election attempt to win votes.
I watched the debates in Parliament yesterday and am baffled by what MPs have decided to do. One Bill (the European Union (Withdrawal) (No.6) Bill if you wish to read it) which seems likely to be approved demands that the Prime Minister sends a letter to the European Council requesting a further extension past October for Brexit. The proposed letter is specifically worded.
But under the UK’s, albeit unwritten, constitution the Prime Minister’s powers include: “Relationships with other heads of government” – see https://tinyurl.com/y3wneo9s for more on the Prime Minister’s powers. In effect MPs seem to want to take over executive powers in our relationship with foreign powers such as the EU. But the Prime Minister can surely contradict any such letter or undermine it in other ways because he alone has the powers to negotiate with the EU (as Mrs May negotiated the proposed Withdrawal Agreement”). This just gets us into a constitutional and political crisis.
The second decision by MPs was not to support the Prime Minister’s request for a General Election which would be one way out of the impasse. That leaves the Prime Minister and his Government in an impossible situation, particularly as now the Government has no overall majority in Parliament. In effect they may find it impossible to get any business through. This can surely not continue for long.
Whether you are a Brexiteer or a Remainer, surely you should be concerned by this turn of events which seems to be driven more by emotions about Brexit and opinions on the merits of the Prime Minister than any rational consideration of the constitutional crisis that is being created and the overall wishes of the electorate.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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