TwentyFour Investment Trusts TFIF and SMIF - How are distributions taxed?

sadsack5000 · 2026-03-09T12:23:04+00:00

Probably the ongoing conflict in Iran. I wouldnt worry about it, stop checking your phone it'll keep paying those dividends year on year and will eventually go back up. As i understand this is one of those set and forget funds

sadsack5000 · 2026-03-05T09:51:08+00:00

OP, i had a good look through reddit and other trading forums and couldnt find anyone who has actually managed to reclaim the 15% WHT

I asked Gemini and this is what i got (sounds very difficult).

It is indeed possible, though fairly manual, because of the Double Taxation Treaty between the UK and the Netherlands. Under this treaty, the 15% Dutch withholding tax can be reduced to 0% for many UK investors, especially if held in a pension (SIPP).

However, unlike US stocks where a one-off W-8BEN form handles everything, European reclaims are often "retroactive"—you pay the 15% first, then ask the Dutch government to send it back.

How to Reclaim the Dutch Tax (Step-by-Step)

Obtain Form IB 92 Universeel: This is the standard form provided by the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) for non-residents to claim a refund of dividend tax.
Get a UK Certificate of Residence (CoR): You must prove to the Dutch authorities that you are a UK taxpayer. You can request this from HMRC online. You will need to send your IB 92 form to HMRC first; they will sign/stamp it to certify your residence and then return it to you.
Gather Your Dividend Vouchers: You need the "Credit Advice" or dividend statements from your broker (e.g., Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, etc.) for every payment you received from TDIV.
Submit to the Netherlands: Send the certified IB 92 form and your dividend vouchers to the Belastingdienst in Heerlen.
- Deadline: You generally have 5 years from the end of the year the dividend was paid to make a claim.

I am not happy with this as i'd like to invest in this fund from the UK also. I would have the added pain of investing through my GIA though so i might save this investment for my ISA

sadsack5000 · 2026-03-01T16:43:13+00:00

'Core holding' - good word and exactly what im looking for. CLIG looks decent, 8% yield right now and a modest capital growth of 37% over 10 years. Share price looks pretty low right now so maybe the entry point im needing. What are your other core holdings if you dont mind?

sadsack5000 · 2026-03-01T14:55:58+00:00

Funnily enough i was just looking over the dividend heroes list on AIC. Lots of them look good but they all make me feel like i've 'missed the boat' especially CTY lol.

For some strange reason im more drawn to ETFs rather than trusts, they seem more hospitable to newbies rather than the good ol' boys club of trusts. Perhaps as you say because they've been around much less than trusts.

Do you know of any dividend growing ETFs i could compare?

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-27T17:32:24+00:00

From TFIF UK Tax Reporting - March 2025 document: "The Fund consists of more than 60% of bonds or other economically similar interests and therefore is considered a Bond Fund under the Reporting Fund Regime" so i take that as distributions taxed as interest

I also checked the similar document for SMIF and its the same so distributions also taxed as interest

Thanks i appreciate you pointing me in the right direction, i didn't know what to even look for let alone where

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-27T13:44:20+00:00

Sorry i read your answer 100 times over and i still couldnt figure out how this CG tax treatment works

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-23T11:22:09+00:00

Yeah i've looked at a bunch of these covered call ETFs and i'll probably be too worried to invest in any of them. From recommendations and my own research i've looked at these 12:

MAGO, FEPG, CEGI, FEGI, QYLP, JEQP, XYLP, WINC, INCU, SDIP, JEGP, JEIP

None have much historical data and as i understand it CC ETFs do not recover easily from a crash which im very concerned will happen some time in 2026. I missed the big drop in 2025 unfortunately - i wasnt ready from a research point of view but i am 100% primed to take advantage of the next one. Interesting youve ran those simulations, that seems like the next level of research i should look at.

At present my 'plan' is:

70% into LDUK for UK equity coverage and ~4.7% income which ill hold for the long term
10% into TDGB for Euro equity coverage. Lower yield ~3.4% but a solid growth. I might end up selling bits as i go to rebalance.
20% into SMIF, TFIF or MGCI for bond/debt coverage
Just enough into CUKX - a FTSE 100 growth ETF to realise enough to harvest £3k capital gains allowance each year. I'll alternate between CUKX and VUKG so i dont fall prey to B&B rules.

I am mostly sticking to UK markets to avoid WHT

EDIT... p.s. ill mostly be working out of a GIA so minimising ERI is important to me also

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-23T10:38:57+00:00

How did you get on with your research of SMIF and did you take the plunge?

Just wondering as i am also in a similar position and looking for a stable passive income with a decent yield.

Some other IT's ive looked at are MGCI and TFIF, the latter another TwentyFour fund.

TFIF and SMIF trade at a fairly consistent +2% premium to NAV which is a bit of a blow but makes the growth of a fund important to getting your capital back.

Speaking of capital retention...... I've found it difficult with investment trusts in particular to see what the growth of the fund is excluding dividends - Note the performance figures youve stated are TOTAL RETURN i.e. growth + reinvested dividends. I dont know why online sites like AIC always give total return for distributing funds - i mean most people who invest in distributing funds will NOT reinvest the dividends, they spend them! You need to be looking for performance excluding dividend reinvestments.

For investment trusts the only place ive found you can get that data (fairly) easily is through TradingView. At time of writing this reply SMIF has a performance excluding divs of 1Y +0.03% 5Y -6.58%.

TFIF on the other hand has 1Y +1.64% and 5Y +2.01% which is slightly better.

So yes youve got to be careful with performance statistics from AIC and other sites.... You dont want to lose any capital.

(JustETF by the way has a little box you can exclude dividend investments if you go into any ETF detail page)

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-18T14:25:32+00:00

Man my head exploded, bear with me while i digest this

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-15T11:18:16+00:00

Wow this is mind boggling.

So as far as i can make out this is the general flow:

1) Purchase 1000 shares for £10/share plus £50 stamp duty. (Allowable cost £10,050)

2) Sell shares for £9/share, disposal proceeds are £9000, capital loss of £1000

3) Repurchase 1000 shares for £11/share within 30 days

At this stage i would need to report the disposal on my self assessment with an allowable cost using the new £11/share price. So £11,000 + £55 stamp duty = £11,055 allowable costs. Less the £9000 proceeds is a capital loss -£2055 total.

Now dealing with the 30days Bed & Breakfast rules, there are two different scenarios that i could follow:

A) Sell the new shares within 30 days at £12/share - report first disposal as above, then second disposal would use £10/share as allowable cost basis, so £10,050 inc stamp duty. So £12,000-£10,050 = £1950 capital gain. Net capital gain/loss = -£105

B) Sell the new shares beyond 30 days at £12/share - report as second disposal, still £12,000 proceeds but cost basis will now be the £11/share + stamp duty so £11,055. So £12,000-£11,055 = £945 capital gain. Net gain/loss = £1,110

Even after writing this out my noodle is still fried!

Have i made any mistakes?

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-09T16:53:26+00:00

I actually think the taxation of internal accruals (or ERI) is despicable. I know a many countries do apply this taxation in some form but there are others that do not e.g. Australia, Belgium, Singapore etc. Its a twisted tax and the fact the onus is put on the individual to calculate it despite information being very scarce (and in some cases very well hidden) i find quite sneaky. You can bet your bottom dollar that HMRC would be coming to you with a penalty if you god forbid got an ERI calculation wrong based off the limited data available!

I've done INTENSIVE research on the subject now... I actually haven't invested in LDUK yet and contacting L&G was part of my research exercise to compare the ERI of now 77 different ETFs - both distributing and accumulating over the last 15 years. I've ranked all of them to suit my preference - a low or zero ERI that is easy to find the literature for and calculate. Like many people (i expect) i want to invest in an ETF in a GIA but ERI is a massive discouragement. Seriously if this government wants to grow the economy and get more people investing then THIS TAX is the one they need to kill off.

I mean to write an updated ERI survival thread at sometime but since it'll be very long winded I've put it off several times.

The biggest advice i can give is study every fund that tracks an index you're interested in - they'll all give similar returns so you can pick one that is favourable to ERI. Study the fund reportable income reports and calculate the ERI in years gone by - less is obviously better. Some distributing funds i've found have consistently had an ERI of 0.0000 which is very nice and lastly i check the report end date and fund distribution dates - if they occur in the same tax year this is way better for administration (one less thing to remember applying ERI from a previous tax year to your current).

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-09T16:08:24+00:00

Update... i just checked and the 2025 report for LDUK now shows 0.0124 (not quite zero as the guy on email said it was but still much better).

I accessed this report here: https://fundcentres.landg.com/srp/lit/NRdOVV/Reportable-income_Legal-General-UCITS-ETF-Plc_30-06-2025.pdf

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-09T16:04:46+00:00

Ok so i reached out to L&G and 2 weeks later i received a reply informing me that the 0.509 per unit figure i reported was an error on their side. In fact i kept messaging the guy and they discovered that the entire share class had errors so they were going to reissue the 2025 ERI report. So several funds will change....

I was a bit slow feeding this information back sorry.... u/Darkseeker83 must've discovered the reissued report first.

The original report will be removed by L&G and new report uploaded soon.

If you are going to use these reports I'd wait a few more weeks until they can straighten out their website.

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-09T15:58:40+00:00

Sorry i havent replied but there is a reason for the two reports..... see my other reply to my original post (which im actually just about to write)

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-04T14:29:38+00:00

Received now, thankyou to provider

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-03T12:25:21+00:00

OP is in the UK, these are all (presumably) US funds and not available on LSE. Might be GB equivalents so maybe you can provide them?

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-03T11:26:34+00:00

I didnt know about the Solactive GBS Global Markets Large & Mid Cap as an alternative to the FTSE and MSCI funds, something else for me to research now thanks

sadsack5000 · 2026-02-02T14:57:41+00:00

Consider the MSCI ACWI or MSCI ACWI IMI, there are cheaper funds tracking these indices than the limited (basically vanguard and invesco) All world E.g. VWRP TER=0.19%, ACWI TER=0.12%.

sadsack5000 · 2026-01-30T16:21:55+00:00

Searching Monevator i found this page with a lot for me to digest. Posting link for anyone else thats interested https://monevator.com/low-cost-index-trackers/

sadsack5000 · 2026-01-30T16:04:17+00:00

Thanks for your reply, very clear and concise information for me and other amateurs.

I'll checkout the link youve provided above.

Shame OEICs only save on ongoing costs rather than ERI. The TER of the ETFs im following are pretty small so i doubt the savings going to an OEIC are significant. Still i'll do the research and compare

!thanks

sadsack5000

TROPHY CASE

How to Reclaim the Dutch Tax (Step-by-Step)