Dividends and return of capital

Dividends and returns of capital are both cash payments, but AksjeFiks treats them differently. Choose the event type that corresponds to the information in the company and broker documentation.

• Dividend is included as dividend income and may have foreign withholding tax.
• Capital return reduces the cost basis of the shares held when the event occurs.

Dividend

Bank account and security

Select the account in which the dividend was recorded and the security that paid the dividend. The account associates the event with the correct account and determines, among other things, whether it is shown when events and calculations are filtered by account.

Date

Enter the dividend’s tax recognition date. For an ordinary share dividend, this is normally the date on which the dividend was approved by the general meeting. If another competent body, such as the board acting under an authorisation, approved it, use that body’s decision date.

You should therefore normally enter neither the payment date nor the record date. The record date determines who is entitled to the dividend, while the decision date determines the year in which the dividend is recognised. This also applies if the money is paid in a later year. Other forms of distribution may be subject to specific rules; see the Norwegian Tax Administration’s Tax ABC on the timing of share dividends.

An imported CSV row often contains only the broker’s booking or payment date. For example, an Avanza file may provide only the date of the actual payment. AksjeFiks cannot infer the company’s decision date from that information. Check imported dividends against the company or broker documentation and edit the date if necessary. This is especially important when the decision and payment fall in different calendar years.

Quantity

Enter the number of shares or units to which the dividend relates. The quantity is stored and displayed for information, but it is currently not used in the dividend calculation itself. AksjeFiks therefore does not use this field to calculate a dividend per share, validate the registered holding, or allocate the amount between accounts.

Instead, the total amount in NOK is added to the year’s dividends. Withholding tax in NOK is added separately. When calculating the shielding deduction, AksjeFiks allocates the dividend and withholding tax proportionally across the open FIFO positions based on the registered holding at the time of the event.

The quantity is nevertheless useful as a check. Comparing the quantity, gross amount, and dividend per share in the broker documentation can reveal that an incorrect amount or event has been registered.

Total amount

Enter the gross dividend in the selected currency, before withholding tax is deducted. The dialog shows the calculated withholding tax and net dividend in NOK.

Withholding tax

Enter the foreign tax deducted from the dividend in the same currency as the dividend. Leave the field at zero if no withholding tax was deducted.

Withholding tax is stored separately and included in the summary. Read more on the withholding tax page.

Currency and exchange rate

Select the dividend currency. The same rate is used for the gross dividend and withholding tax. Check both the calculated gross amount and withholding tax amount in NOK against the documentation.

Dividends in multiple accounts

If the same security paid dividends into two accounts, register two dividend events, one for each account. Enter the quantity, gross amount, and withholding tax that belong to each account.

When you filter by an individual account, only the dividend event and positions for that account are included. When all accounts are displayed, the amounts from both events are added together and allocated across all open FIFO positions for the security. For an ordinary dividend with the same gross amount per share in both accounts, this produces the same proportional allocation as calculating each account separately.

Do not enter the combined amount for both accounts in each event. Doing so would count the dividend and withholding tax twice.

Return of capital

Use Capital return when a payment should reduce the shares’ cost basis instead of being treated as an ordinary dividend.

The dialog contains fields for the account, share, date, quantity, total amount, currency, exchange rate, and comment. Enter the payment’s total amount in the selected currency.

When the event is processed, AksjeFiks allocates the NOK amount across the open FIFO positions in proportion to their quantities and reduces their cost bases. The event does not change the number of shares.

The registered holding on the event date determines the allocation. Check in particular that:

• all earlier purchases, sales, splits, and account transfers have been registered
• the event occurs after any same-day transactions that should affect the holding
• the total amount is for the entire return of capital, not the amount per share

Do not select Capital return merely because the broker uses a different name for a payment. The classification should follow the documentation for the corporate action.

Checks after registration

After registering a dividend, check the gross dividend, withholding tax, net amount, and currency. After registering a return of capital, check the cost bases of the remaining FIFO positions. Both events should also appear under the correct year in the annual summary.