US ETFs no longer purchasable in Europe

B

Boyd

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I just saw this on boards, might be of interest to people on here:
Hi,
This week I had the following message from my uk broker

"New regulation being introduced on 1 January 2018 will affect dealing in some of your holdings.The new regulation requires that issuers of certain types of investments (known as ‘Packaged Retail Investment and Insurance Products’or ‘PRIIPs’) must publish a Key Information Document (or KID) if they are available to private investors.Without a KID, private investors will not be able to make any further purchases in that stock, although they can continue to hold the PRIIPs they already own. They can also sell at any stage."

This means all the dollar-denominated Vanguard non-UCITS ETFs will unavailable for purchase in Europe from 1st January 2018 because Vanguard are not providing KIDs for them.

I think nearly all the iShares non-UCITS ETFs likewise will be gone.

DeGiro told me they didn't know what ETFs they would be allowed to market and told me to check the website in January 2018

I haven't seen any specific announcements about this and I wondered what Boards.ie users knew about it, and in particular if they knew of any US ETF issuers who were going to provide KIDs ?
Click to expand...
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057822332

An interesting development indeed....
 
If this is official, and across European brokers, then the game is up.
Revenue will be laughing their head off.
 
I have a US etrade account so maybe will not be affected yet. At least it shows that they are not able to tax US domiciled etfs the same as euro domiciled ones, all they can do is make it more difficult for irish investors to buy them. So there must be alot of irish investors now investing in US domiciled etfs if revenue are now honing in on it. Irish investors can still buy UK investment trusts anyway as an alternative vehicle with similar tax advantages
 
fistophobia said:
If this is official, and across European brokers, then the game is up.
Revenue will be laughing their head off.
Click to expand...

Brokers can on promote funds without the required KID etc... That does not meant that you cannot buy them if they are quoted on an exchange you have access to.
 
Vanguard have confirmed to me they will not be producing KIIDs for US-listed ETFs, which means that we will effectively be left with no option but to invest in UCITS ETFs, and suffer Revenue's lunatic rules on deemed disposal, if we want access to liquid, diversified international equities investments. Great little country in which to save for the future, eh?
 
Sherman said:
Vanguard have confirmed to me they will not be producing KIIDs for US-listed ETFs, which means that we will effectively be left with no option but to invest in UCITS ETFs, and suffer Revenue's lunatic rules on deemed disposal, if we want access to liquid, diversified international equities investments. Great little country in which to save for the future, eh?
Click to expand...

and the experts tell us property is such a poor investment compared to stocks ?

it is but not in ireland in many cases !
 
It's a little surprising how quiet it has been on this subject. We've effectively been shut out of the market, and are forced to either invest via the Irish pension system, or into ridiculously-taxed UCITS funds.

There must be more than a handful of us impacted by this change -- what are the rest of you doing?

I see in the boards thread a couple of people considering opening up accounts with US-based brokers, is that really the only way out of this bureaucratic quagmire?
 
Have you looked at listed UK investment trusts?

Something like Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust plc holds a globally diversified equity portfolio, has a reasonable TER and is subject to the normal income tax/CGT regime.

Alternatively, where appropriate, just maintain a higher equity allocation in your pension fund and pay off any debts/keep your after-tax savings on deposit. It's important to consider all your accounts as a whole.
 
Hi Sarenco,

Thank you very much, I had not looked into FRCL but I will do so.

Are all UK investment trusts subject to our normal income tax/CGT? It's the 8-year deemed disposal I am trying to avoid, as I want to hold these for 25+ years, all going well.
 
Hi Jabberwocky

The tax treatment of UK investment trusts has previously been discussed on quite a few threads in the "investments" sub-forum.
 
Sherman said:
Vanguard have confirmed to me they will not be producing KIIDs for US-listed ETFs, which means that we will effectively be left with no option but to invest in UCITS ETFs, and suffer Revenue's lunatic rules on deemed disposal, if we want access to liquid, diversified international equities investments. Great little country in which to save for the future, eh?
Click to expand...
Does that mean they lose out on customers from across Europe and Canada? It would be great if some paper high lighted the issues and explained why making KIIDs is such an obstacle.
 
Just waiting it out at the moment, hoping one of the companies will come good with the documentation needed.

Will be opening a US brokerage account otherwise more than likely.
 
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