STSM132060 - CREST: CREST and SDRT: CREST Enhanced Stamp Duty Reserve Tax Assessment Service

Background

The majority of Stamp Duty Reserve Tax (SDRT) is assessed, paid and collected through CREST, the electronic settlement and registration system operated by Euroclear UK & International Limited (EUI).

The drive to reduce customer costs has resulted in a trend for gross transactions in ‘chargeable securities’ to be aggregated or netted off outside of CREST and a single aggregated or net instruction input to CREST for settlement. This has meant that the individual gross transactions were not assessed and reported as required by legislation.

The CREST enhanced SDRT assessment service enables individual gross transactions which have been netted or aggregated outside of CREST, to be sent separately to CREST for reporting and assessment of SDRT. The service was first implemented in June 2014.

Businesses that settle transactions in CREST on individual gross transaction basis, or use the netting functionality provided by and within CREST will not be affected, as transactions will be assessed using the already established SDRT process.

How does the enhanced SDRT assessment service operate?

The enhanced assessment service is operated separately, but closely follows the established SDRT market practice in CREST.

Where aggregation or netting is undertaken outside of the CREST system and an aggregated or net transaction instruction is input to CREST as a delivery (DEL) settlement instruction, the transaction is to be flagged with the ‘K’ Transaction Stamp Status ‘net’ stamp flag. Where a ‘net’ stamp flag is input, the transaction will settle under normal CREST settlement discipline, but will not be assessed for SDRT.

The underlying gross transactions related to the aggregated or net settlement instruction are to be reported separately to the CREST SDRT assessment service with the Transaction Type; Stamp Assessed Trade (SAT) and populated with the relevant SDRT Transaction Stamp Status value. CREST will assess each reported SAT gross transaction for SDRT and collect tax where due.

Further Information

Further technical information is available through EUI CREST operational guidance documentation and technical bulletins.

For the meaning of ‘chargeable securities’ see STSM031090.