Characterisation for treaty purposes of manufactured dividends received in terms of securities lending arrangements

Equity securities lending arrangements are contracts whereby a shareholder lends his shares to a borrower for a period of time. If dividends are declared during that period, these accrue to the borrower, and the borrower pays a manufactured dividend to the lender as compensation. The applicable income tax legislation deems manufactured dividends to be dividends for purposes of dividends tax. However, unless manufactured dividends are governed by Article 10 of a double tax treaty, South Africa may not have the right to tax manufactured dividends received by non-resident lenders. This would result in a loss of revenue for the South African fiscus. This paper examined the qualification or characterisation for treaty purposes of manufactured dividend income earned by lenders in terms of securities lending arrangements. This examination was done through an analysis of the ‘dividends' definition in Article 10 of the 2017 OECD model convention. It was found that manufactured dividends are not ‘dividends' for treaty purposes, and are instead business income in terms of Article 7. South African domestic tax legislation was analysed, together with publications by the South African Revenue Service and National Treasury, and demonstrated that there is a risk of taxation not in accordance with the provisions of a convention, as well as a risk of revenue losses to the South African fiscus where a non-resident lender has no permanent establishment in South Africa

Oxygen isotopes implanted in the LDEF spacecraft

Secondary ion mass spectrometry was used to study oxygen implanted in the surface of copper from the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). Oxidation that occurred in orbit shows a characteristic oxygen isotope composition, depleted in O-18. The measured depletion is comparable to the predicted depletion (45 percent) based on a model of the gravitational separation of the oxygen isotopes. The anomalous oxygen was contained within 10nm of the surface. Tray E10 was calculated to have received 5.14 x 10(exp 21) atoms of oxygen cm(sup -2) during the LDEF mission and so there is sufficient anomalous implanted oxygen present in the surface to obtain a reliable isotopic profile