The “Information on refunds of Austrian withholding tax on Austrian dividends to taxpayers subject to limited tax liability” is a reaction of the Federal Ministry of Finance to recent investigations relating to cases of attempted and committed tax fraud involving unjustified withholding tax refunds ( “cum-ex-trades”).
The draft “Information on refunds of Austrian withholding tax on Austrian dividends to taxpayers subject to limited tax liability” clarifies at which point of time (date of the shareholder resolution on the dividend distribution, cum-date, ex-date, pay-date etc.) the beneficial ownership in the shares of the dividend distributing Austrian company needs to be given, so that the dividend may be attributed to the claimant for income tax purposes and indicates which documentation (bank confirmations) needs to be provided by the claimant in this regard.
The Austrian Tax Authorities will apply this approaich to all currently pending tax reclaims, as well as to all tax reclaims submitted in the future.
The information published by the BMF can be downloaded via the following links:
English-language version:
https://english.bmf.gv.at/taxation/Relief_Austrian_Withholding_Tax_on_Dividends_2.pdf?4k27pv
German-language version:
https://findok.bmf.gv.at/findok?execution=e1s4&dokumentId=92c49f84-8216-4747-be6d-7092c55be930
In addition, please note that the new version of the tax reclaim form ZS-RE1(A) is expected to be announced very soon. The German version of the reclaim form ZS-RD1(A) can already be downloaded from the homepage of the Austrian Ministry of Finance .
http://formulare.bmf.gv.at/service/formulare/inter-Steuern/pdfs/9999/ZS-RD1.pdf
http://formulare.bmf.gv.at/service/formulare/inter-Steuern/pdfs/9999/ZS-RD1A.pdf
Impact on investors: For all currently pending and future tax reclaims, the receipt of securities on or after ex-date will no longer be considered to imply dividend entitlement and therefore WHT reclaim entitlement, even if the securities were bought or otherwise acquired before ex-date. These entitlements will have to be substantiated by claimants via documents the evaluation of which is solely at the discretion of the Austrian Tax Authorities.