When I first started investing in US stocks, withholding tax was one of the concepts that befuddled me. It didn’t help that there are very few sources of information out there dealing with withholding tax from a Singapore perspective. It took me many hours of digging to begin to grasp the extent of my tax obligations

I’ve recently received a number of queries from readers about the full implications of withholding tax.

With that in mind, I felt that it was an opportune time to take a closer look at withholding tax. It’s quite a taxing topic (get it?), but nevertheless it’s a crucial one that all investors should understand. Many times we obsess over the expense ratio of an ETF or the minimum commission of a brokerage, but then we just blindly accept a 30% tax on all dividends from our US stocks.

Please note that tax is