Nyt alettiin kusemaan ulkomaisten sijoittajien muroihin. Edustajainhuone hyväksyi lakiesityksen, joka nostaa jenkkiosakkeiden osingoista perittävää lähdeveroa. Menessään läpi senaatissa ja Trumpin allekirjoitettua, tämä nostaisi perittävää lähdeveroa asteittain 5%-y:lla per vuosi aina 20%-y lisäprosenttiin asti.
Vaikutus koskisi esim. suomalaisia sijoittajia, sekä fyysisiä rahastoja tai ETF:iä, jotka pitävät kotipaikkanaan yleensä Irlantia.
Tämä laki toki rikkoisi myös maiden välistä DTT:tä, jonka purkaminen voisi johtaa jopa 50% lähdeveroon.
US House Passes Bill Targeting ‘Unfair Foreign Taxes’ | Insights | Mayer Brown
That bill would impose a 5% addition to the tax rate each year for four years on
the U.S income of individuals and entities located in a foreign jurisdiction that imposes a discriminatory or extraterritorial tax, such as a UTPR or digital services tax (DST). After four years, the cumulative 20% additional tax would be imposed each year the targeted tax remains in effect.The proposed tax bill has been passed by the US House of Representatives. It will need to be passed by the US Senate and signed by President Trump before it takes effect. Significant changes may be made during the Senate review process. In particular, Proposed Section 899 will be subject to the parliamentary rules governing whether a provision may be included in reconciliation legislation. Under the reconciliation rules, for a policy to be included in a reconciliation bill, the committee of jurisdiction over the policy must receive an instruction in the budget resolution.8 As such, there may be questions about whether the provisions of the proposal that override tax treaties could be included in the US Senate’s version of the tax bill.
Theoretically, if the US goes ahead & unilaterally overrides the US-IE DTT (breaking int’l law), it seems Irish physical ETFs could eventually pay up to 35% dividend tax (15 + 20). Maybe the whole treaty will be terminated, and then it’d be 50%, if the they leave the treaty (apparently can be done with 6-months’ notice).
The 871(m) exemption (swaps on ‘qualfied’ indices with deep derivatives markets, like S&P 500, MSCI USA) presumably will remain intact. MB refer to other WHT exemptions in different letters of 871 remaining unaffected
Under § 899 a country is automatically in if it already imposes any digital-services tax (DST), undertaxed-profits rule (UTPR) or diverted-profits tax (DPT); no further Treasury action is needed.ⁱ And if a tax is only proposed or deferred, Treasury still has authority to add the country once the tax bites.)*
“Day-one” countries
The tax is already live for 2025, so they would be on the first list absent a last-minute repeal.
Trigger Jurisdictions (non-exhaustive) Key source UTPR in force 1 Jan 2025 (EU directive or domestic law) - France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Luxembourg, Greece, Croatia, Czech Rep., Slovenia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc. (all EU members that did not take the Article 50 deferral) • Australia • New Zealand • South Korea • Thailand KPMG Digital-services tax already collecting revenue France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Austria, Turkey, India (equalisation levy), Kenya, Nigeria, Indonesia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland (streaming), Portugal, etc. SkaddenPublic Citizen Diverted-profits tax United Kingdom (31 % DPT) • Australia (40 % DPT since 2017) PwC Tax Summariesato.gov.au Other automatic UTPR adopters Norway (budget makes UTPR effective 1 Jan 2025) KPMG If § 899 were enacted tomorrow, payers would need to be ready to withhold an extra 5 percentage-points starting 1 Jan 2026 on any treaty-rate payments to residents of those countries.
Will an Irish-domiciled ETF suffer the new § 899 surcharge?
Irish ETF category Does § 899 hit the income the fund receives from the United States? Why Physical (or sampled) U.S.-equity ETF Yes – the 15 % treaty rate on the fund’s U.S. dividends would rise to 20 % in 2026, 25 % in 2027 … up to 35 % once the full +20 pp surcharge is phased in. *Ireland will almost certainly be on the “discriminatory-foreign-country” list the day it is published, because it has enacted the Pillar-Two *undertaxed-profits rule (UTPR) with effect for fiscal years beginning 31 Dec 2024 KPMG. § 899 applies the surcharge on top of the existing treaty rate. The U.S.–Ireland treaty currently gives Irish funds a 15 % dividend rate IRS, and Irish ETFs routinely rely on that lower rate (one of the main reasons most European sponsors domicile in Ireland rather than Luxembourg) etfstream.cometfstream.com. Irish ETF that holds U.S. Treasuries or other portfolio-interest debt No (for now). Interest on Treasuries is already exempt under the portfolio-interest rules, and the House bill does not override Code-level exemptions such as §§ 871(h)/881(c). § 899 explicitly says the surcharge is laid “on the rates in §§ 871(a)/881(a).” Commentaries note the portfolio-interest exemption is left untouched Mayer Brown. Irish synthetic (‘swap’) ETF tracking an S&P 500-type index Not immediately. A total-return swap on a qualified broad-based index is not a “dividend-equivalent” under § 871(m), so there is no U.S. withholding at all – the fund already receives the gross index return Invesco. Because no FDAP income arises, there is no rate for § 899 to increase. Congress could later narrow the qualified-index carve-out, but that would require either new statutory language or a major rewrite of the still-unfinished § 871(m) regulations – something Treasury has struggled to do for 15 years.
What this means for holders
- Physically replicated Irish U.S.-equity ETFs will see their net-of-withholding dividend return fall by roughly 5 % of the cash-dividend yield each year until the surcharge tops out.
Example: an S&P 500 ETF with a 2 % cash dividend yield would lose an extra 0.10 % in 2026 (5 % of 2 %), 0.20 % in 2027, etc. The drag compounds because the fund cannot reclaim the tax; it is borne at fund level and reflected in NAV.- Distributions from the ETF to you as a non-Irish investor are still paid out of an Irish fund that itself has no Irish withholding tax, so there is no second levy – the hit is felt only inside the fund.
- Bond ETFs and synthetic-replication equity ETFs remain unaffected in the short run, but you should keep an eye on:
- Any Senate amendment or future technical-corrections bill that tries to fold broad-based-index swaps into § 871(m); and
- Whether Ireland ultimately negotiates a UTPR deferral (unlikely given its large MNE base).