"Also, as far as how CGT is calculated when you sell, i was under the assumption that ETFs didn't trigger this and you actually pay yearly when the company themselves have to buy/sell to rebalance.. where as LICs do trigger CGT when you sell (and are therefore eligible for the > 1yr CGT discount). An accountant said not to put any capital gains/losses on your tax return if you sell out of an ETF because you'll be double taxed."
You may have to double-check with your accountant that your understanding of this is correct
My understanding is that sometimes cap gains are passed through to you through distributions - eg the trust structure requires all cashflows to be passed through, so when one of the underlying stocks is acquired, the cash is payed out to you and you are liable for the CGT
As for buying/selling during the year, its pretty minmal for ETFs as the index doesn't change too much, except at the smaller end which is a small part of the portfolio
One of the advantages of ETFs is that when a market maker or institution redeems a large number of ETFs for the underlying securities, the ETF provider gives them the securities with the lowest cost base, decreasing the cap gains liability of all other unit holders
All in all buy and hold is pretty tax efficient for both lics and etfs, personally I wouldn't favour one over the other for tax purposes
The above is just my understanding of how it works and could be wrong, don't rely on it
As for buying lics at a premium, I would be wary of buying in at a signifint premium... why pay $1.20 for $1 worth of shares?
ARG Price at posting:
$6.01 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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