First time investor/shareholder question - ComputerShare Easy Update

Hi everyone,
My first post.
After many years of looking around and messing around, I finally purchased some shares recently.
I have a portfolio of single digit shares worth thousands of dollars! That's not actually a joke, but you've got to start somewhere right? I'll let you know if these are good investments or not in 30 years.

After buying the shares (ETF), I got some letters which told me 'it is in my interest to provide my securityholder information to computershare / easyupdate
I bought my shares through an account with one of the big 4 banks, and they have my details such as my TFN. Do I still need to provide my details to computershare? If so, why?

Thanks in advanced.

Hi audioguy, Computershare is a share registry where the shares of different companies are recorded, your bank share broking account e.g comsec, nabtrade etc are a broker that buy and sell shares for you on the market.
So computershare work as an intermediary, between you and the listed Company e.g BHP, Rio etc, so they pass on your TFN or the Company has to withhold tax at a higher rate.
Well that is my understanding of it, there are some people on the forum like Craft and Junior, that will be able to clarify or correct me if I am wrong.
Just my understanding, I'm not an accountant, so don't take it as gospel.

AudioGuy said:

After buying the shares (ETF), I got some letters which told me 'it is in my interest to provide my securityholder information to computershare / easyupdate. Do I still need to provide my details to computershare? If so, why?

Click to expand...

Hi @AudioGuy welcome to the ASF community.

@sptrawler has answered your questions but as I had already written a reply I'll post it as well.

Do I still need to provide my details to Computershare?
The short answer is yes because when you buy or sell shares you must exchange the title from one holder to another & a share registry maintains these records.

If so, why?
Share registry companies like Computershare need more information to confirm your identity & to get your instructions concerning the shares you have purchased. They are the record keepers of your shares.

Who decides which Share registry holds your shares?
Share registries are appointed by the Company to maintain the records of their security owners (that's you). A Share Registry like Computershare maintains shareholder records, disburses and reinvests dividends, transfers shares for ownership changes & handles all the correspondence for the individual companies - this is the very reason why you have been contacted by them as they are the record keeper of your shares.

Skate.

Hi AudioGuy and welcome. With that username, have you looked into Audinate (AD8), not a recommendation, just resonates with your username!

I use Commsec and by default, when I set up the account, which was years ago, it was set so that they as the broker pass on the banking details for depositing dividend payments to the share registry automatically when I buy a new holding. I still have to record my tax file number for each new holding manually by logging into the relevant share registry (computershare, link market services, automic, the boardroom, etc). This is a pain because you have to do it each time you buy a new holding. If you don't then you can end up with withholding tax deducted from your dividends which you would then need to claim in your tax return.

Thanks for your replies everyone.
So from what I can tell, the broker (in my case NABTrade) is only for buying/selling. They don't maintain who holds which shares etc. Companies like Computershare does that. So once I've purchased the shares, I should notify the appropriate company such as Computershare of my info.
This makes sense, and I will be doing this.
I just find it strange that in 2019 this can't happen automatically. So once I buy the shares, my info is sent to Comptuershare automatically.

In addition to the above it is best to register an account with the share registry, in this case Computershare, in order to check it has:

Your correct TFN - sometimes this gets missed as I have experienced. Blame it on cosmic rays.
Your correct bank details - especially if the payment of dividends is to an account which is different from the one you use to trade;
Your correct email address for notification of the availability of dividend statements or other company advices (annual report, etc);
To apply, withdraw or amend any Dividend Reinvestment Plan arrangements as applicable;
You may also need to verify your eligibility and arrangements under the FATCA/CRS (international tax stuff and money laundering issues) for each share holding - I've had to do that for a few of those I hold.

Was trying to do an amendment but time expired.

In regard to correct email address, it is essential in my view it is correct otherwise you will not receive any advice of dividend payments and will need to login to the share registry to download them. Also if a Rights Issues, SPP or other corporate action, there will be made available a personalised application on the share registry so you don't have to wait for paper.

You will still get heaps of paper if you do an amendment. They love that despite sending an email verification of the amendments you make. CHESS statements will always be sent as that's not from the company or the share registry but from the ASX corporation.

Suggestion: Go paperless and download everything to hard disk, external hard drive and cloud provider of your choice. I've got all my tax history going back for over a decade including the SMSF. Storage is cheap. It is ideal to get the file structure correct before you start doing that if you want to go down that route. If ever I am audited, God forbid, at least I have a record of all the transaction readily available.

Belli said:

You will still get heaps of paper if you do an amendment. They love that despite sending an email verification of the amendments you make. CHESS statements will always be sent as that's not from the company or the share registry but from the ASX corporation.

Click to expand...

An essential tool if you want to buy or sell shares is a shredder because you don't need or want 99% of what they send you. You could simply throw everything out but I prefer to shred anything which has my name and address on.

Belli said:

Suggestion: Go paperless and download everything to hard disk, external hard drive and cloud provider of your choice.

Click to expand...

When you save the documents name them in a way that you can find them easily in the future. My broker sent me paperwork for a trade I place this morning with the helpful name of BulkReport-021020191010.pdf which I renamed to abc_yyyy-mm-dd_Sell_nnnn.pdf (where abc is the share code, yyyy-mm-dd the date, Sell or Buy tells my the type of trade and nnnn is the quantity).

Also have a backup just in case. I save everything to my NAS, copy everything to the cloud and also make regular backups to an external drive.

BoNeZ said:

When you save the documents name them in a way that you can find them easily in the future. My broker sent me paperwork for a trade I place this morning with the helpful name of BulkReport-021020191010.pdf which I renamed to abc_yyyy-mm-dd_Sell_nnnn.pdf (where abc is the share code, yyyy-mm-dd the date, Sell or Buy tells my the type of trade and nnnn is the quantity).

Click to expand...

Yeah, I went overboard as usual. File structure is Tax Return/FY. For share holdings as a separate folder by ASX Code. Same date format as yours as it sorts by yyyy-mm-dd without having to think about it.

For any ETF I keep the annual tax statement in both the relevant tax year folder and in the ASX Code folder just in case there is a need to refer to it later for any cost-base adjustment. Have yet to compete my investigations on whether that is actually necessary but better to be safe. Right click, Save As is your friend.