In a mutual fund, you make returns in two ways. How are mutual funds taxed for each of these ways? It depends on the nature of return.
- Capital gains: This is the difference between your purchase NAV and the redemption NAV. For example, if you bought mutual fund units for Rs 15 and redeemed it for Rs 20, your capital gains per unit is Rs 5. Only capital gain that is booked is taxed – i.e., you will be taxed only at the time of selling your units. Your gains on paper are not taxed as long as you do not sell any unit.
- Dividends: Mutual funds pay dividends from time to time. This dividend is stripped from your NAV and given to you.
Capital gains tax rates and rules
Equity and equity-oriented funds
Categories covered: Pure equity funds such as large-cap, multi-cap, sector, thematic, index and so on, and hybrid equity-based funds – arbitrage, balanced advantage, equity savings and aggressive hybrid
All other funds
Categories covered: Pure debt funds, international funds, gold funds, debt index funds, hybrid funds that are not equity-oriented such as conservative hybrid
Note: This tax treatment is for resident Indian investors only. For NRIs, please click here : tax rules for NRIs.
Please note that taxation of these funds has undergone a change. Indexation benefit will not be available for investments made from April 1, 2023 onwards. Hence, there will be no distinction between long term and short-term holding period for the above categories of funds. The gain from these funds will be added to your total income and taxed at your income tax slab rate. You can read about this in our article, ‘Tax changes in mutual funds: How to manage your investments now‘.
What is an equity-oriented fund?
An equity-oriented fund is one which invests at least 65% of its portfolio in domestic stocks. Therefore, international funds, while investing in stocks will not qualify as equity-oriented as they don’t hold domestic stocks.
In general, this is also true of Fund of funds - typically they are NOT classified as equity oriented funds. However, according to recent tax laws, a fund-of-fund could be classified as an equity-oriented fund, if it invests at least 90% of its proceeds in an ETF that in turn invests at least 90% of its proceeds in domestic stocks.
For investments in equity-oriented funds prior to January 31st 2018
Tax rules for such investments are different, as long-term capital gains until this date were tax-exempt. The 2018 Budget brought in long-term capital gains tax on equity and to remove retrospective impact, it grandfathered gains made up until that date.
That is, if you invested in equity-oriented funds before January 31 2018, capital gains you made until then is exempt from taxes. You will pay tax only on gains made post this date. In order to work this gain out, you need to calculate the cost of investment using the following method:
Your capital gain is the difference between the Step 3 cost of acquisition and the actual NAV at the time of redemption.
For example, say you invested at an NAV of Rs 22 in December 2016. Its NAV as on Jan 31st 2018 was Rs 25, and you sold it in March 2020 at an NAV of Rs 28. In this case, value 1 is Rs 22, and value 2 is Rs 25 (lower of Rs 25 and Rs 28). So the cost of acquisition works out to Rs 25 (higher of Rs 22 and Rs 25). Your capital gain per unit is Rs 3 (Rs 28 less Rs 25).
Dividend tax rules – all mutual funds
The 2020 budget made sweeping changes to dividend taxes for mutual funds (and stocks!). Up until then, dividend distribution tax (DDT) was applied on dividend paid and the net proceeds were returned to you. Both equity and non-equity funds came under the DDT net. You did not have to pay dividend taxes separately.
From the fiscal 2020-21 and onwards, DDT won’t be applied. All dividend received from mutual funds, whether debt or equity-oriented, will be taken as your income and added to your total income. You will then pay tax on this based on your slab rate. You will therefore need to keep track of dividends received.
If you have opted for dividend reinvestment, do keep in mind that it still counts as income earned in the year. All you’re doing is reinvesting this income earned. You will need to include this as well when working out total dividend received in a year.
Taxation when investing through SIP or STP
You can invest in the same mutual fund on different dates, especially when you are invest through SIPs. In this case, how is the capital gain and tax calculated? The tax rules follow a first-in-first out logic. That is, it is assumed that the first unit you bought is the first unit you sold. See the example below to understand it better:
Say that you sold 500 units today at Rs 50 per unit. Your redemption amount is then Rs 25,000.
The first units bought are in June 2015. That’s 137 units. Then go to the next purchase date, in December 2015. That’s a further 66 units to total 203 units. Move date-wise in such a manner until you arrive at the 500-unit total. So for 500 units, you will have to include all investments made from June 2015 to December 2016, and 34 units of bought on April 2017.
The total cost of these investments is Rs 16,942. For non equity-oriented funds, you will have to calculate the indexed cost for each of the dates to arrive at the total cost. You don’t need to really sweat this out! These details are mostly available as statements if you invest through online portals.
For more about mutual funds and how they work, please refer to this article.
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