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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: Hello 5i Team
Publish as needed or as a start to a blog entry.
I performed a simplified after tax analysis of BEP.UN vs BEPC and BIP.UN vs BIPC.
Basis of Calculation
I used the 2019 distribution and related tax information from Brookfield website for BEP.UN and BIP.UN in Canadian dollars. I used the highest marginal tax bracket for Alberta for taxation rates.
BEP.UN / BIP.UN receive T-5013 tax form
BEPC / BIPC receive T-5 tax form
Results
BEP.UN you will receive 71.4% of income after tax if you assume ROC taxed each year (taxation of ROC is deferred until you sell the units and results in capital gains tax).
BIP.UN you will receive 82.1 % of income after tax if you defer ROC tax each year.
BEPC you will receive 68.3 % of income after tax.
BIP.UN you will receive 60.2 % of income after tax if you assume ROC taxed each year (taxation of ROC is deferred until you sell the units and results in capital gains tax).
BIP.UN you will receive 67.7 % of income after tax if you defer ROC tax each year.
BIPC you will receive 68.3 % of income after tax.
Going forward, BEP.UN will probably receive more foreign income (as a result of the Terraform merger) and will pay a higher overall tax rate.
BEP.UN and BIP.UN allow deferral of income tax due to Return of Capital, however this complicates an individual’s tax return when held in a taxable account.
It is difficult to truly estimate the taxes payable on BEP.UN / BIP.UN as the allocation to various tax components is not known until March of the following year. If ROC drops significantly (from 30 – 40 % of total income), the overall tax paid will increase. With BEPC/BIPC the tax percentage is known as BEPC/BIPC issue “eligible dividends” and no ROC is assumed.
All things being equal, I think it is best to hold BEP.UN / BIP.UN in a RRSP / TFSA where the slightly higher distribution yield, if re-invested in units, will result in a higher total return. In a taxable account it is probably best to hold BEPC / BIPC to avoid the headaches of tracking Return of Capital and the inclusion of a T-5013 form in an individual’s income tax form.
Each person’s results will vary as a result of province residence and marginal tax rates (13 province/territories x 5 tax brackets = 65 potential different tax rates).
Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on August 27, 2020
Q: Hi Peter and 5i team,

I currently have BIPC and BEPC shares in my TFSA account, and I expect to hold them for the long term. Is it worth paying a transfer fee to move those shares to my CAD non-registered account in order to be able to recover any US taxes paid on dividends.

Many thanks for your opinion on this matter.
Read Answer Asked by Michel L on August 25, 2020
Q: Good morning, Portfolio Analytics suggests we (as elderly seniors) lower our Utility holdings by 6.32%. Currently, we have:
AQN 3.9 %, BEPC 3.5%, BIP.UN 4.6%, H 2.2%, SPB 1.8%. Firstly is there a holding I could eliminate? If not should I just lower the larger percentages? All are in RRIFs.
Second suggestion from Analytics is to lower telecom by 3.54%. Currently have BCE 4.2%, T 3.5% and GOOG 4.2%. T and BCE are in RRIFs. GOOG is in an unregistered account. I have always looked at GOOG as technology sector. Any comments. Thanks for your expertise.
Ted
Read Answer Asked by Ted on August 21, 2020
Q: Would you please mention other renewable energy corp. in US and Canada. Thanks for your incredible service. Jim
Read Answer Asked by jim on August 21, 2020
Q: TD Waterhouse has BIP as a buy. It uses two valuation metrics. EV/EBITDA and P/FFO. Which is better in your opinion. Why don’t they use P/E. Final question, is there another company I could use to compare against?
Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Albert on August 18, 2020
Q: The price gap between the two seems to vary from 2.50 to 3.50 in favour of BEPC.
Do you see that as a constant going forward as both move in lockstep or do you see any circumstances that would expand or contract the differential?
Thanks,

Terry
Read Answer Asked by Terry on August 17, 2020
Q: Further to the active discussion of BEPC versus BEP.UN, I switched over to BEPC (from BEP.UN) in my registered account. I phoned TD-Waterhouse today to see if I could enroll my BEPC shares into a synthetic DRIP, and was told that BEP.UN is eligible, whereas BEPC is not. I am curious-- can you confirm this, and if this is indeed the case, why might that be? For those 5i subscribers who are interested in enrolling in a (brokerage) DRIP, this could be a relative advantage of BEP.UN, especially with a lower price (and higher yield) versus BEPC, one would be gradually adding to their position via a DRIP. Your thoughts on this situation?
Ted
Read Answer Asked by Ted on August 11, 2020
Q: Good morning 5i,
With the European green deal and Biden's plans to attack climate change, should result in solar panel and wind power installations, and with so much money being allocated to infrastructure projects, which companies could benefit from these two investments by Governments..
Thanks you for your much appreciated help.
Carlo
Read Answer Asked by Carlo on August 07, 2020
Q: I have over 1000 shares of BEP:US in my RIF. I am planning to convert the shares to BEPC:CA and take some shares out next year as part of my RIF annual withdrawal. You have predicted that BEPC shares should do better than the BEP:US shares and so far you prediction seems to be correct. (Yes it is early days). I am thinking of selling the BEP:US maybe in a week or two, thinking the demand from Canadian investors will have slackened by then. Am I being foolish trying to time the market?
Thanks,
Jim
Read Answer Asked by James on August 05, 2020
Q: Hi, I have have 152 shares of BEP.UN in my RSP. I understand I will get 1 share for every 4 I have so I would be getting 38 shares of BEPC. What would be my avg price for these new shares? Also if they are both sitting in my RSP, what should I do instead of holding both?? I know I can sell both and then buy BEPC in my margin account to get the dividend tax credit going forward or if I wanted to continue holding them in my RSP, is it best to just consolidate them into one? If so, which one? What would be the most efficient thing to do? Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Keith on August 04, 2020
Q: Hello 5i,

Lots of volatility before and after the split. Obviously people are trying to mimic BIPC game plan and it is not playing out the same way. What do you think the current fair price for BEPC and BEP.UN should be and what do you see the price being 12 months from now?
Read Answer Asked by James on July 31, 2020
Q: I am holding BEP.UN and now BEPC also.
Will the BEPC dividend continue to be in U.S. $ ?
If the dividend on BEPC will be $0.4340 per share, payable Sept. 30 and the previous dividend on BEP.UN was $0.5425 on June 30, I would expect the future dividend on BEP.UN to drop, like the share price approx 25%, correct?
If so this seems to represent an overall dividend increase of about 6% in terms of total holdings, right?
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on July 30, 2020