IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/acctfi/v60y2020i4p3407-3446.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How much does tax erode fund excess returns?

Author

Listed:
  • Zhe Chen
  • David R. Gallagher
  • Graham Harman
  • Geoffrey J. Warren
  • Lihui Xi

Abstract

We model the tax drag from active fund management based on reported monthly holdings of active equity funds. Tax drag erodes 65 percent of the 0.74 percent excess return in Broad Market funds, but only 21 percent of the 1.80 percent excess return in Small‐Cap funds for Australian superannuation (pension) fund investors. Tax drag varies with investment style; market state, which is most detrimental during bull markets; and fund turnover. For high‐income individual investors, tax drag is exacerbated to the extent that active management only generates meaningful after‐tax excess return for Small‐Cap funds of certain styles.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhe Chen & David R. Gallagher & Graham Harman & Geoffrey J. Warren & Lihui Xi, 2020. "How much does tax erode fund excess returns?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 3407-3446, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:60:y:2020:i:4:p:3407-3446
    DOI: 10.1111/acfi.12483
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/acfi.12483
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/acfi.12483?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph Chen & Harrison Hong & Ming Huang & Jeffrey D. Kubik, 2004. "Does Fund Size Erode Mutual Fund Performance? The Role of Liquidity and Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1276-1302, December.
    2. Joel M. Dickson & John B. Shoven, 1995. "Taxation and Mutual Funds: An Investor Perspective," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 9, pages 151-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. David R. Gallagher & Adrian Looi, 2006. "Trading behaviour and the performance of daily institutional trades," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 46(1), pages 125-147, March.
    4. Pinnuck, Matt, 2003. "An Examination of the Performance of the Trades and Stock Holdings of Fund Managers: Further Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 811-828, December.
    5. Dammon, Robert M & Spatt, Chester S, 1996. "The Optimal Trading and Pricing of Securities with Asymmetric Capital Gains Taxes and Transaction Costs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(3), pages 921-952.
    6. Russ Wermers, 2000. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Empirical Decomposition into Stock-Picking Talent, Style, Transactions Costs, and Expenses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1655-1703, August.
    7. Fong, Kingsley Y.L. & Gallagher, David R. & Lau, Sarah S.W. & Swan, Peter L., 2009. "Do active fund managers care about capital gains tax efficiency?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 257-270, April.
    8. Richard B. Evans, 2010. "Mutual Fund Incubation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(4), pages 1581-1611, August.
    9. Dickson, Joel M. & Shoven, John B. & Sialm, Clemens, 2000. "Tax Externalities of Equity Mutual Funds," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 53(3), pages 607-628, September.
    10. Russ Wermers, 2000. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Empirical Decomposition into Stock‐Picking Talent, Style, Transactions Costs, and Expenses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1655-1695, August.
    11. Clemens Sialm & Hanjiang Zhang, 2020. "Tax‐Efficient Asset Management: Evidence from Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 735-777, April.
    12. Scott Bennett & David R Gallagher & Graham Harman & Geoffrey J Warren & Lihui Xi, 2016. "Alpha generation in portfolio management: Long-run Australian equity fund evidence," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 41(1), pages 107-140, February.
    13. Bergstresser, Daniel & Pontiff, Jeffrey, 2013. "Investment taxation and portfolio performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 245-257.
    14. Zhe Chen & David R. Gallagher & Geoffrey J. Warren, 2019. "The effect of data availability in measuring fund managers’ after‐tax alphas," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 59(S1), pages 411-448, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clemens Sialm & Hanjiang Zhang, 2020. "Tax‐Efficient Asset Management: Evidence from Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 735-777, April.
    2. Bührle, Anna Theresa & Yen, Chia-Yi, 2023. "Too much "skin in the game" ruins the game: Evidence from managerial capital gains taxes," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-028, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2023.
    3. Scott Bennett & David R. Gallagher & Graham Harman & Geoffrey J. Warren & Yuki Xi, 2018. "A new perspective on performance persistence: evidence using portfolio holdings," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(1), pages 91-125, March.
    4. Clemens Sialm & Laura T. Starks & Hanjiang Zhang, 2015. "Defined Contribution Pension Plans: Sticky or Discerning Money?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 805-838, April.
    5. Marcin Kacperczyk & Clemens Sialm & Lu Zheng, 2008. "Unobserved Actions of Mutual Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(6), pages 2379-2416, November.
    6. Chen, Qi & Goldstein, Itay & Jiang, Wei, 2010. "Payoff complementarities and financial fragility: Evidence from mutual fund outflows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 239-262, August.
    7. Nicholas Moehle & Mykel J. Kochenderfer & Stephen Boyd & Andrew Ang, 2021. "Tax-Aware Portfolio Construction via Convex Optimization," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 189(2), pages 364-383, May.
    8. Clemens Sialm & Laura Starks, 2012. "Mutual Fund Tax Clienteles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1397-1422, August.
    9. Kingsley Fong & David R. Gallagher & Adrian D. Lee, 2008. "Benchmarking benchmarks: measuring characteristic selectivity using portfolio holdings data," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(5), pages 761-781, December.
    10. Shoven, John B. & Sialm, Clemens, 2004. "Asset location in tax-deferred and conventional savings accounts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 23-38, January.
    11. Beggs, William & Hill-Kleespie, Austin & Liu, Yanguang, 2022. "Mutual fund tax implications when investment advisors manage tax-exempt separate accounts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Pástor, Ľuboš & Stambaugh, Robert F. & Taylor, Lucian A., 2015. "Scale and skill in active management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 23-45.
    13. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    14. Wolfgang Bessler & David Blake & Peter Lückoff & Ian Tonks, 2018. "Fund Flows, Manager Changes, and Performance Persistence [Does motivation matter when assessing trade performance? An analysis of mutual funds]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(5), pages 1911-1947.
    15. Linlin Ma & Yuehua Tang, 2019. "Portfolio Manager Ownership and Mutual Fund Risk Taking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5518-5534, December.
    16. Jeffrey A. Busse & Tarun Chordia & Lei Jiang & Yuehua Tang, 2021. "Transaction Costs, Portfolio Characteristics, and Mutual Fund Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 1227-1248, February.
    17. Scott Bennett & David R Gallagher & Graham Harman & Geoffrey J Warren & Lihui Xi, 2016. "Alpha generation in portfolio management: Long-run Australian equity fund evidence," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 41(1), pages 107-140, February.
    18. Cong Chen & Carole Comerton-Forde & David R. Gallagher & Terry S. Walter, 2010. "Investment manager skill in small-cap equities," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 35(1), pages 23-49, April.
    19. Cai, Biqing & Cheng, Tingting & Yan, Cheng, 2018. "Time-varying skills (versus luck) in U.S. active mutual funds and hedge funds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 81-106.
    20. Chune Young Chung & Doojin Ryu & Kainan Wang & Blerina Bela Zykaj, 2018. "Optionable Stocks and Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 390-412, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:60:y:2020:i:4:p:3407-3446. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaanzea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.