While we like to keep tax time simple, Hatch has a limited amount of information about your situation. Because we don’t know about the rest of your income and your personal tax rate, we can’t calculate your tax credits for you. We can help you calculate them yourself.
Your tax credits are calculated on individual overseas investments
If you’re a FIF taxpayer, you need to calculate what (if any) foreign tax credit you’re entitled to for each of your overseas investments, not your investments as a whole.
The maximum you might be able to claim in tax credits is the amount you’ve already paid in overseas (US) tax on dividends you’ve received. It’s a good idea to check that amount in your annual Hatch Tax Report (check your ‘Total overseas tax paid’) before deciding whether to claim a credit. Why? You may want to consider whether it’s worth doing the calculations if you can only claim a few bucks.
How to calculate your tax credits
In most cases*, you should be able to follow the steps below to calculate the tax credit for each of your overseas investments:
Choose your FIF income calculation
Pick the FIF income calculation method you’re using to determine your total FIF income (FDR or CV). The fastest way to get your FIF income calculated is by ordering a FIF report when it becomes available in your annual Tax Reports.
Find the investments that added FIF income
You’ll only be able to claim a tax credit on overseas investments that have increased your FIF income during the tax year (note: your FIF income for each investment takes dividends into account). You can see the FIF income for each of your Hatch investments in the Hatch FIF report.
If an investment hasn’t increased your FIF income (or has decreased it), then you can’t claim a credit for any overseas tax you’ve paid 🙅♂️
Calculate the tax on your FIF income
Now you know which investments increased your FIF income, you need to calculate the tax obligation on that income. If you order a Hatch FIF report (available with your annual Tax Reports), you can do this in 6 steps:
Step | Example |
1. In your FIF report, find individual investments that are eligible for a tax credit - these are the investments with a FIF income over $0 | FDR Income Hatch investment 1: $2,000 NZD Hatch investment 2: $2,000 NZD Hatch investment 3: $0 ❌ (no income, not claimable) |
2. In the ‘Dividend Summary‘ tab of the Excel file included in your FIF report, find the overseas tax you’ve already paid on these investments
If any of your eligible investments are ADRs, you should also read our article on ADRs & tax credits. | Overseas Tax Paid Hatch investment 1: $375 NZD Hatch investment 2: $500 NZD Hatch investment 3: $300 NZD ❌ (no FIF income, not claimable) |
3. Calculate your total income and total NZ tax obligation by entering all sources of income for the tax year (job, NZ investments, FIF income, cashies, side hustles, etc) into the IRD’s calculator. | Salary: $80,000 NZD + Hatch investment 1: $2,000 NZD + Hatch investment 2: $2,000 NZD
Income: $84,000 NZD Tax obligation: $18,640 NZD
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4. Using the numbers you got in step 3, divide your tax obligation by your income.
Your income is taxed at increasing rates up to your top tax rate, so this is your effective (aka average) tax rate. | $18,640/$84,000 = 0.2219 Your effective tax rate is: 0.2219 (or 22.19%) |
5. For each investment you identified in step 1: multiply your FIF income by your effective tax rate - this will give you the tax you owe in NZ per investment. | Hatch investment 1: $2,000 * 0.2219 = $443.80 NZD
Hatch investment 2: $2,000 * 0.2219 = $443.80 NZD |
6. The tax credit you can claim for each investment is the lower of the NZ tax you owe on each investment and the actual amount of tax you’ve already paid in the US.
Once you’ve worked this out per investment, you can add together to get your total claimable overseas tax paid. | Hatch investment 1: Tax paid: $375 NZD ✅ Tax obligation: $443.80 NZD ❌
Hatch investment 2: Tax paid: $500 NZD ❌ Tax obligation: $443.80 NZD ✅
Total claimable = $818.80 NZD |
In this case, when the FIF taxpayer submits their tax return, they’ll be able to claim $818.80 NZD in tax paid overseas (rather than the total US tax paid of $875 NZD), which will reduce their tax bill for the year.
*If you have a complex tax situation, are declaring losses, or are on a low tax bracket you may have to take additional steps to calculate the claimable tax credit. For further info, see IRD’s FIF guide (page 20)
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Note: Your tax obligations are unique to you - if you're unsure, we recommend you seek professional tax advice. Your situation may change over time; it’s your responsibility to keep up to date with changes.