Question on Tax on Foreign Dividends

[dacrosby]

I was doing my taxes tonight on TurboTax and got to a point I am not sure how to fill in. Hoping someone can help.

For the first year ever I have some dividends from a Canadian trust (Enerplus Resources). I got my 1099-DIV from my broker, and entered box 6 "foreign tax paid". The next screen asks for the portion of the dividends that were from a foreign country, and which country. The help says that the foreign percentage is not listed on 1099-div, but to look at the paperwork from the dividend payer and it will list the percentage. Anyone know where to look for this? I can't find it anywhere on the documents I was sent. BTW, my 1099-div line 7 says "various".

Thanks..

[nelsona]

Well, if that was the report you got from your Cdn broker, then the dividends were 100% from a foreign country -- Canada.

Don't forget that this form is used by every US broker, and you may have held US shares, 3 BCE shares and 10 shares of a UK bank. Then you would have had to divvy up what was US, what was Canada, whata was UK.

In your case the 1099 is all-Cdn.

As to why it says "various". Enerplus Resources is working in the tarsands, so I don't see how it can be anything but Cdn.

You can look at http://www.enerplus.com/investor_inform ... n/us.shtml

for more info

[dacrosby]

Thanks for your reply Nelson. The form is actually from a US broker - I bought the shares on the NYSE through the broker, so the form isn't from Canada. I also have one other mutual fund (a US one) with that broker, reported on the same form. Maybe that is why it says various? Say I had 20% other fund, and 80% Enerplus, would 80 be the percentage that I could put down?

[dacrosby]

After looking closer, I think I got this figured out.......thanks for all the help!

[nelsona]

Yeah, I'm sure the software should have just asked "how much" was foreign, rather than what percentage, etc.