Article 11 — Request for relief at source or quick refund

1. Source Member States shall require a certified financial intermediary that maintains the investment account of a registered owner receiving dividends distributed or interest paid by a resident in the source Member State to request relief pursuant to Article 13 or Article 14, as applicable, on behalf of that registered owner, if the following conditions are met: (a) the registered owner has authorised the certified financial intermediary to request relief on its behalf; and (b) the certified financial intermediary has verified and established the registered owner’s eligibility for relief in accordance with Article 12 or Article 15, as applicable. 2. Notwithstanding paragraph 1 of this Article, Member States may exclude, completely or partially, requests for relief under the systems as provided for under Articles 13 and 14, where any of the following circumstances occur: (a) the dividend has been paid on a publicly traded share that the registered owner acquired in a transaction carried out within a period of five days before the ex-dividend date; (b) the dividend payment on the underlying security for which relief is requested is linked to a financial arrangement that has not been settled, expired or otherwise terminated before the ex-dividend date; (c) at least one of the financial intermediaries in the securities payment chain is not a certified financial intermediary and no certified financial intermediary has assumed the position of that financial intermediary for the purposes of Article 10 in accordance with Article 5(5). (d) an exemption of the withholding tax is claimed; (e) a reduced withholding tax rate not deriving from double tax treaties is claimed; (f) the dividend payment exceeds a gross amount of at least 100000 EUR, per registered owner and per payment date. For the purposes of the first subparagraph, point (f), of this paragraph, the amount of the dividend payment shall be determined by the gross dividend amount per investor holding equity in a collective investment undertaking where that underlying investor is entitled to relief pursuant to Article 15(2), points (a) or (b), as applicable. 3. Paragraph 2, point (f), shall not apply where either of the following is entitled to relief of excess withholding tax: (a) a statutory pension scheme of a Member State or an institution for occupational retirement provision registered or authorised in a Member State in accordance with Article 9(1) of Directive (EU) 2016/2341; or (b) a collective investment undertaking that is a UCITS established in accordance with Article 1(1) of Directive 2009/65/EC, an EU AIF or an EU AIFM. 4. Paragraph 2 shall apply to any arrangement whereby the dividend payment is split or to any collective investment undertaking other than those referred to in paragraph 3, point (b), that has been established with the sole purpose of keeping the dividend payment below the amount referred to in paragraph 2, point (f). 5. Notwithstanding paragraph 1, where the financial intermediary that maintains the investment account of a registered owner is not a certified financial intermediary, Member States shall allow a certified financial intermediary to request relief pursuant to Article 13 or Article 14, as applicable, subject to Article 5(5) and Article 10. 6. The systems of relief pursuant to Article 13 and Article 14, as applicable, shall not reduce the control powers of Member States under their national rules in relation to the taxable income to which such relief was applied and do not affect the taxing rights of Member States. 7. Where, prior to the entry into force of this Directive, a Member State has a relief-at-source system or quick refund system or a combination thereof, and that Member State applies Chapter III pursuant to Article 2, that Member State shall ensure the compliance of that system with Chapter III for any request for relief covered by this Directive, i.e. relief relating to dividends arising from publicly traded shares and, where the Member State decides to include interest from publicly traded bonds paid to non-residents, also to such interest. Member States may also maintain and apply an existing national relief-at-source system to the cases referred to in paragraph 2, point (e), of this Article in which verifications are performed in order to: (a) ensure equal treatment between domestic and cross-border situations to comply with Chapters 2 and 4 of Title IV of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; or (b) apply reduced withholding tax rates in accordance with Council Directives 2003/49/EC or 2011/96/EU.