You add the gross dividend income to your income and you get a credit for the foreign tax paid. When you file your tax return there is usually a space to record US dividends and the US tax withheld.
Basically, you will be taxed at your marginal rate on the gross dividends and get relief for some, if not all, of the US tax withheld
Don't know if my info is up to date, but aren't you also supposed to have filed a W-8BEN form to reduce your US withholding tax from 30 percent to 15 percent as a non-citizen. Then you get the 15 percent credited in Ireland.
Thanks jpg for the reply and the information...appreciate it. Like dub_nerd refers too i have a valid W8-Ben filed so does that change anything or do i need to record something about this in the online form 12 tax return
Also i have a deduction on my tax cert for us dividends = does this have any impact on lowering amount tax need to pay on this
jpd/dub_nerd - any thought re this now based on this additional information ?
Thanks
Passport1, no you don't need to mention W8-BEN on your tax form as Revenue don't care. They will assume that 15% tax was withheld and if you paid 30% it's your lookout. I'm afraid I don't know what an online Form 12 looks like, I've only ever filled in Form 11. Also I don't know what it means to have a deduction on your tax cert for US dividends. Was that for some other year on which you declared US dividends?
I can tell you on Form 11 that US Dividends are broken out onto a separate line under Foreign Income. It's a simple one-liner: "US Dividends - Enter gross amount". It also says: "(Enter the amount of Irish tax deducted, if any, on encashment of these dividends in the appropriate section below)" but I would assume this doesn't apply as most people will just receive their US dividends with the US 15% withheld. What happens next is a bit opaque. But according to this Irish Times article, Revenue will charge you 5% or 25% tax on your gross dividend, i.e. topping you up from the 15% already withheld to 20% or 40% as appropriate for your tax band. There may be USC and PRSI as well.
When you fill out an online Form 11, the ROS system does your tax calculation for you before you submit, so you get to check whether the calculation matches your expectations. I don't know if the facility you're using is the same.