How mutual funds & ETFs are taxed | Vanguard (2024)

FAQs

How mutual funds & ETFs are taxed | Vanguard? ›

Just as with individual securities, when you sell shares of a mutual fund or ETF (exchange-traded fund) for a profit, you'll owe taxes on that "realized gain." But you may also owe taxes if the fund realizes a gain by selling a security for more than the original purchase price—even if you haven't sold any shares.

The Bottom Line

ETFs are generally considered more tax-efficient than mutual funds, owing to the fact that they typically have fewer capital gains distributions. However, they still have tax implications you must consider, both when creating your portfolio as well as when timing the sale of an ETF you hold.

Like income from the sale of any other investment, if you have owned the mutual fund shares for a year or more, any profit or loss generated by the sale of those shares is taxed as long-term capital gains. Otherwise, it is considered ordinary income.

ETF dividends are taxed according to how long the investor has owned the ETF fund. If the investor has held the fund for more than 60 days before the dividend was issued, the dividend is considered a “qualified dividend” and is taxed anywhere from 0% to 20% depending on the investor's income tax rate.

If you're paying fees for a fund with a high expense ratio or paying too much in taxes each year because of undesired capital gains distributions, switching to ETFs is likely the right choice. If your current investment is in an indexed mutual fund, you can usually find an ETF that accomplishes the same thing.

The conversion itself is tax-free to the investor and switches from actively managed mutual funds, which aim to outperform the market. The primary benefit of the new ETF is more tax efficiency. “That's a big selling point,” Sotiroff said.

One common strategy is to close out positions that have losses before their one-year anniversary. You then keep positions that have gains for more than one year. This way, your gains receive long-term capital gains treatment, lowering your tax liability.

Systematic Withdrawal Plan (SWP): Set up an SWP to automatically redeem your mutual fund units regularly. By keeping withdrawals below Rs. 1 lakh per year, you may avoid LTCG tax altogether.

ELSS funds are equity funds that invest a major portion of their corpus into equity or equity-related instruments. ELSS funds are also called tax saving schemes since they offer tax exemption of up to Rs. 150,000 from your annual taxable income under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act.

The income in the form of dividends from mutual funds (now called IDCW) will be taxed as 'Income from Other Sources' as per your income tax slab rate. If the dividend amount is above Rs 5,000 dividend will be subject to TDS as per Section 194K @10% for resident individuals, but if the PAN is not provided then @20%.

How long should you hold an ETF? ›

Holding an ETF for longer than a year may get you a more favorable capital gains tax rate when you sell your investment.

Mutual funds are usually actively managed, although passively-managed index funds have become more popular. ETFs are usually passively managed and track a market index or sector sub-index. ETFs can be bought and sold just like stocks, while mutual funds can only be purchased at the end of each trading day.

Why? For starters, because they're index funds, most ETFs have very little turnover, and thus amass far fewer capital gains than an actively managed mutual fund would. But they're also more tax efficient than index mutual funds, thanks to the magic of how new ETF shares are created and redeemed.

For instance, some ETFs may come with fees, others might stray from the value of the underlying asset, ETFs are not always optimized for taxes, and of course — like any investment — ETFs also come with risk.

You may be able to find an index mutual fund with lower costs than a comparable ETF. Similar ETFs are thinly traded. As we covered earlier, infrequently traded ETFs could have wide bid/ask spreads, meaning the cost of trading shares of the ETF could be high.

In fact the longer you stay in a debt fund after 3 years, higher is the indexation benefit you get with every passing financial year. One also needs to be mindful that exiting from a debt fund in 3 years and reinvesting in a new debt fund means another 3 years of waiting to get into the long term capital gains period.

ETFs often generate fewer capital gains for investors than mutual funds. This is partly because so many of them are passively managed and don't change their holdings that often.

For the most part, ETFs are less costly than mutual funds. There are exceptions—and investors should always examine the relative costs of ETFs and mutual funds. However—all else being equal—the structural differences between the 2 products do give ETFs a cost advantage over mutual funds.

Distributions and your taxes

If you have mutual funds in these types of accounts, you pay taxes only when earnings or pre-tax contributions are withdrawn. This information will usually be reported on Form 1099-R.

Index funds—whether mutual funds or ETFs (exchange-traded funds)—are naturally tax-efficient for a couple of reasons: Because index funds simply replicate the holdings of an index, they don't trade in and out of securities as often as an active fund would.