Declaring dividends on accumulating Vanguard ETF

Hi all,

Last year I have purchased an accumulating ETF from Vanguard (this one). Since in Switzerland distributing and accumulating ETFs are treated the same for tax purposes, and this one is not in the ICTax database, I have to declare the “income” by myself.

How do you go about it? Things I have tried unsuccessfully:

  1. Look for the equivalent distributing ETF and declaring that amount - does not work since there is no CHF hedged distributing ETF
  2. Look at the Vanguard annual report to get the total income for the fund and divide that by the number of shares to get a “dividend” - does not work since Vanguard’s reporting is as of June (last twelve months) or December (last six months), and additionally the number of shares varies during the year, making it a difficult calculation to get right

Would appreciate any ideas. Thank you!

I would ask the federal tax administration whether they could add the ETF to ICTax. You can use this form to contact them: Contact a specialist Anticipatory Tax

I’ve noticed that the other accumulating share classes of the same fund, which are hedged to USD/EUR/GBP, are in ICTax but have the note “(I) The taxable earnings could not yet be identified and will be determined later.” E.g. IE00BG47KH54.

If you don’t find an acceptable solution, it may make sense to switch to iShares AGGS, which should be very similar and is in ICTax, for future tax years.

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