Hi, I’m Taiwanese living in Taiwan. I would like to save in a US invested ETF such as VTI. I have read that I should look for a non US domiciled equivilent ETF so that I can avoid the 30% dividend tax.
Is there a conventional or community suggested approach? Which ETF is like VTI but non US domiciled that I can buy with a Taiwanese or international broker from here? Which bank or trade account? Schwab international? Interactive Brokers? Local bank?
Any advice much appreciated.
Ireland-based ETFs are quite common for this. There are plenty of EU-based ETF comparison websites, such as: ETF portfolios made simple
Popular choices would be
There probably won’t be exact matches to the US funds, but you should be able to find basically any type of ETF you want (US/worldwide, large-caps/small-caps, S&P500, …). Just take a look at the expense ratio / tracking difference and the domicile.
For VTI, you might need to combine a large/mid-cap US + small cap US. Or you just decide to invest in a world-wide fund (which would still be around 60% US) or just the S&P 500.
If you chose a synthetic (swap-based) ETF, there will be even less taxes (replicating and sampling ETFs in Ireland will still need to pay 15% (?) withholding taxes for US dividends!), but not everyone is a fan of those.
Also note that US-citizen (including dual-citizens!) are not allowed to invest in those and can be heavily fined for doing so!
They do offer EU ETFs for Taiwan residents and rather low fees, so that’s what I would recommend. Account opening from Taiwan was also really quick and easy from my experience.
any bank in taiwan offers franklin templeton etfs go ask
Very helpful, thanks for the information
Unfortunately, among Taiwanese banks it still seems to be somewhat common to charge a significant percentage fee for buying and/or selling funds. And some even seem to charge a yearly percentage as a custody fee (in addition to the management fees of the fund)…