Subject: MI for non-Americans
I just learned something today.

Historically it didn't really matter what sort of thing I bought if it was listed in the US. Corporations, partnerships, ADR, non-US company, whatever. The domicile of the company generally determined the withholding tax rate on the dividends if any, but that wasn't a very big deal. Where I live there isn't any additional year-end paperwork for withholding tax, since I get nothing back anyway.

But I just thought I would share my new knowledge: since last year, if you aren't a "US Person" and you own a piece of a US listed partnership, there is a withholding tax when you sell. Not 10% of the dividend, not 10% of the profit, but 10% of the entire sale proceeds. And, as mentioned, if like me you live in a place that doesn't have a double taxation treaty with the US covering this specific situation, that withheld tax is a dead loss.

Nice little example summary at Interactive Brokers:
Buy 200 shares @ 50.
Transaction value = $10,000
Sell 200 shares @ 51.
Transaction value = $10,200
Profit = $200.
Withholding = $1020 USD
Assuming no tax reclaim requests, the loss in value to the investor would be $820

So...I have to screen all my picks to make sure they are not listed partnerships. I don't know how to do that other than manually from the VL database, and I don't know any way to check my backtests with that as a filter as VL tests are no longer possible in GTR1 which has a security type field. Dang! For example, 3 of 6 picks on one of my screens today were in that category. Some are not so obvious, for example Sunoco.

Jim