Dividends on funds

tigerspill

I am trying to sort out selling Accumulation funds before the end of the tax year to utilise my CGT allowance of £3,000 as best as possible.
In doing this, I believe I can deduct (from the sale price) the notional income (dividends) on the units to be sold to date.  
Obviously I have this information from the tax certificates for previous years, but I don't have this information as yet for this tax year, and I can't seem to find this on the iWeb site (where I hold the units in a GIA).
I thought I might be able to calculate this based on the published dividend rate.  I thought I would test this by checking a 2024/2025 tax certificate for one of my funds - VLS 80.
If I look at my Vanguard Platform tax certificate for 2024/25 - I see that I was paid £328.73 on 57.82 units (no equalisation as not purchased in this year).  That works out at £5.6854 per unit.  If I look at my iWeb platform where I hold the same units, the dividend rate is £5.68486100 which is different again.  
However, when I look at the published dividend rate for VLS 80, the dividend rate is £5.6868 dates 2/4/2024 but paid I believe on 31/5/25 - so I think I have the correct rate.
I can't understand why this is slightly different from what is on my tax certificate?  As both platforms show less than the published numbers, are there fees or something taken into account on my tax certificates?

The published rate for this year seems to be £5.974225 and am wondering if I should this to calculate the expected notional income for this tax year but am now concerned I have misunderstood something here.

PS - when calculating the income to offset against profit on sale, I assume I add up the income from all previous years holding these units?

I hope this makes sense.

GeoffTF

When I have checked, the dividend rate that I received on Vanguard's own platform for Vanguard Developed World ex UK matches the rate that I received from iWeb, but was never exactly the same as the rate quoted on Vanguard's public website. The dividend that I have just received is a little higher than would be expected from the public website. When I have put in a lot of effort to chase Vanguard about this, they have corrected the value on the public website. I have given up on that. I do not have a Vanguard ETF on both platforms, so I cannot comment about that.

For your Vanguard account, I suggest that you look for Corporate Actions under the Transactions tab. For iWeb, I suggest that you look at the details of your dividend payment under Dividends. Those numbers will reflect what you were actually paid, which is what matters for tax purposes.

One of my iWeb Consolidated Tax Certificates contained an error, and I had the get iWeb to issue a corrected Certificate. They issued the corrected Certificate on paper and did not change the certificate online. I do not know whether they informed HMRC of the change, but HMRC has not raised that as an issue with me.

EthicsGradient

The Vanguard Developed World ex UK figure for income units at FTSE Developed World ex-U.K. Equity Index Fund - Income is £7.6866 (paid on 31/12/25), and that's what I got on ii, rounded down to the penny. I believe the payments I've got have been accurate to the penny in the past, and for Vanguard ETFs as well. But I don't know what is the "published"/"public" Vanguard website tigerspill and GeoffTF are using for the Acc version, since the Acc equivalent of mine just says "Accumulation share class reinvests its dividends" without giving a figure (googling ."5.6868" or "5.974225", and "vanguard" and "lifestrategy" only gives me a Fidelity page, which is of course non-authoritative).

The Vanguard Platform tax certificate and iWeb platform figures given above are the same, to the accuracy of the number of units given (about one part in 10,000). There's a difference of 3p, and another 8p, between the dividends for the 3 rates given and the number of units on the Vanguard platform. Since you're going to round your total acquisition cost up to the next pound, and round the proceeds down to the pound, I don't think this is likely to make a difference, if other years differ by about the same amounts.

"when calculating the income to offset against profit on sale, I assume I add up the income from all previous years holding these units?" - yes, you work out your total acquisition cost for what you held before you sold, ie what you bought it for and the accumulation since then, and then find the cost of the portion that you then sold.

GeoffTF

EthicsGradient said:

The Vanguard Developed World ex UK figure for income units at FTSE Developed World ex-U.K. Equity Index Fund - Income is £7.6866 (paid on 31/12/25), and that's what I got on ii, rounded down to the penny.

Using that number, I am only 3p out on a £10K dividend. Vanguard has either corrected that number or I made a mistake when I did the calculation several weeks ago. The number on the public website has been wrong twice in the past, but was corrected when I complained about it. I had assumed that the dividends were the same for both the income and accumulation units. I do not have any accumulating open ended funds, so I do not know what information the Vanguard and iWeb platforms provide for the dividends. Nonetheless, looking under Corporate Actions for Vanguard and Dividends for iWeb is worth trying.

EthicsGradient

GeoffTF said:

EthicsGradient said:

The Vanguard Developed World ex UK figure for income units at FTSE Developed World ex-U.K. Equity Index Fund - Income is £7.6866 (paid on 31/12/25), and that's what I got on ii, rounded down to the penny.

Using that number, I am only 3p out on a £10K dividend. Vanguard has either corrected that number or I made a mistake when I did the calculation several weeks ago. The number on the public website has been wrong twice in the past, but was corrected when I complained about it. I had assumed that the dividends were the same for both the income and accumulation units. I do not have any accumulating open ended funds, so I do not know what information the Vanguard and iWeb platforms provide for the dividends. Nonetheless, looking under Corporate Actions for Vanguard and Dividends for iWeb is worth trying.

Monetary amounts for income and accumulation units may start out the same when a fund is launched, but then diverge as the accumulation price increases more - it's the yield (ie the dividend divided by the current unit price) that should be the same for each type. So, for LS80, we see (on the non-authoritative Fidelity site, admittedly), for the latest dividends:
Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity Fund A Inc Dividends | GB00B4KWNF91 | Fidelity 4.810702
Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity Fund A Acc Dividends | GB00B4PQW151 | Fidelity 5.974225

GeoffTF

EthicsGradient said:

GeoffTF said:

EthicsGradient said:

The Vanguard Developed World ex UK figure for income units at FTSE Developed World ex-U.K. Equity Index Fund - Income is £7.6866 (paid on 31/12/25), and that's what I got on ii, rounded down to the penny.

Using that number, I am only 3p out on a £10K dividend. Vanguard has either corrected that number or I made a mistake when I did the calculation several weeks ago. The number on the public website has been wrong twice in the past, but was corrected when I complained about it. I had assumed that the dividends were the same for both the income and accumulation units. I do not have any accumulating open ended funds, so I do not know what information the Vanguard and iWeb platforms provide for the dividends. Nonetheless, looking under Corporate Actions for Vanguard and Dividends for iWeb is worth trying.

Monetary amounts for income and accumulation units may start out the same when a fund is launched, but then diverge as the accumulation price increases more - it's the yield (ie the dividend divided by the current unit price) that should be the same for each type. So, for LS80, we see (on the non-authoritative Fidelity site, admittedly), for the latest dividends:
Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity Fund A Inc Dividends | GB00B4KWNF91 | Fidelity 4.810702
Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity Fund A Acc Dividends | GB00B4PQW151 | Fidelity 5.974225

Yes, that makes sense. More accurately, I had assumed that the dividends for £100K invested in the income and accumulation units at the ex-dividend date would be the same. Let's test that hypothesis with Fidelity's data.

For the income shares, per share dividend = 4.810702 and reinvestment price = 241.3149.

Number of shares for £100K = 100,000 / 241.3149 = 414.396293.

Dividend = £4.810702 * 414.396293 = £1,993.54.

For the accumulation shares, per share dividend = 5.974225 and reinvestment price = 305.6381.

Number of shares for £100K = 100,000 / 305.6381 = 327.184340.

Dividend = £5.974225 * 327.184340 = £1,954.67.

That suggests that the income units received about 2% more dividend income than the accumulation units. Perhaps that reflects the reinvestment costs. It would be interesting to know what the calculation reveals for the other entries in Fidelity's table.

tigerspill

Thanks guys.  I am going to have to go through your replies in detail over the weekend to see what is going on. 
I was able to find details under "Corporate Actions" as suggested above.  But can't find similar details anywhere on the iWeb site.  This just makes it difficult to work out how many units to sell and keep just below the £3,000 CHT allowance.

GeoffTF

GeoffTF said:

EthicsGradient said:

GeoffTF said:

EthicsGradient said:

The Vanguard Developed World ex UK figure for income units at FTSE Developed World ex-U.K. Equity Index Fund - Income is £7.6866 (paid on 31/12/25), and that's what I got on ii, rounded down to the penny.

Using that number, I am only 3p out on a £10K dividend. Vanguard has either corrected that number or I made a mistake when I did the calculation several weeks ago. The number on the public website has been wrong twice in the past, but was corrected when I complained about it. I had assumed that the dividends were the same for both the income and accumulation units. I do not have any accumulating open ended funds, so I do not know what information the Vanguard and iWeb platforms provide for the dividends. Nonetheless, looking under Corporate Actions for Vanguard and Dividends for iWeb is worth trying.

Monetary amounts for income and accumulation units may start out the same when a fund is launched, but then diverge as the accumulation price increases more - it's the yield (ie the dividend divided by the current unit price) that should be the same for each type. So, for LS80, we see (on the non-authoritative Fidelity site, admittedly), for the latest dividends:
Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity Fund A Inc Dividends | GB00B4KWNF91 | Fidelity 4.810702
Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity Fund A Acc Dividends | GB00B4PQW151 | Fidelity 5.974225

Yes, that makes sense. More accurately, I had assumed that the dividends for £100K invested in the income and accumulation units at the ex-dividend date would be the same. Let's test that hypothesis with Fidelity's data.

For the income shares, per share dividend = 4.810702 and reinvestment price = 241.3149.

Number of shares for £100K = 100,000 / 241.3149 = 414.396293.

Dividend = £4.810702 * 414.396293 = £1,993.54.

For the accumulation shares, per share dividend = 5.974225 and reinvestment price = 305.6381.

Number of shares for £100K = 100,000 / 305.6381 = 327.184340.

Dividend = £5.974225 * 327.184340 = £1,954.67.

That suggests that the income units received about 2% more dividend income than the accumulation units. Perhaps that reflects the reinvestment costs. It would be interesting to know what the calculation reveals for the other entries in Fidelity's table.

Perhaps a more likely explanation for the 2% is that dividends in the accumulating fund are used to buy more units in the underlying fund as they arise; whereas dividends in the income fund are saved in an interest bearing account, with the interest received being counted as part of the dividend. A 4% interest rate and a uniform distribution of dividends in the underlying fund would explain the 2% extra dividend for the income fund. Would that mean that the accumulating fund is better? Not necessarily. It would mean that more of your money would be held in equities. You can counter balance that by holding a little less cash or bonds.

GeoffTF

tigerspill said:

I was able to find details under "Corporate Actions" as suggested above.  But can't find similar details anywhere on the iWeb site.

Try looking under Dividend History which is under Valuation and Statements. If there is an entry for your dividend, the value of the dividend should be underlined. (The underlining may be invisible.) Click on the link. If there is no entry under Dividend History, I can only suggest that you ask customer services.

tigerspill

GeoffTF said:

tigerspill said:

I was able to find details under "Corporate Actions" as suggested above.  But can't find similar details anywhere on the iWeb site.

Try looking under Dividend History which is under Valuation and Statements. If there is an entry for your dividend, the value of the dividend should be underlined. (The underlining may be invisible.) Click on the link. If there is no entry under Dividend History, I can only suggest that you ask customer services.

Thanks.  This is where I looked but It just says "You have no dividends to view for this account over this period."
I will, as you say, contact customer services.

GeoffTF

I have worked out the numbers for the other dates that Fidelity has for both the income and accumulating shares.

Ex-div date    % Extra    Base Rate
01 Apr 2025    1.988%    4.500%
02 Apr 2024    2.007%    5.250%
03 Apr 2023    1.876%    4.250%
01 Apr 2022    1.530%    0.750%
01 Apr 2021    1.355%    0.100%
01 Apr 2019    1.831%    0.750%
03 Apr 2018    1.623%    0.500%

The income share dividends are consistently larger, but the percentage extra is not consistently about twice the BoE Base Rate when the annual dividend is paid. That could be thrown off by special dividends though.