Tax free? Hardly.
If you withdrew only your contributions, that is not taxable. Any increase in value over your contributions is potentially taxable, depending on the rules mentioned by the other expert. It won't be reported as capital gains, because how the increase in value occurred is not considered and does not affect the tax that might be owed. I suppose you could have invested in something that paid no interest, no dividends and did not gain in value, but that would be a pretty useless investment.
The increase is taxable if the withdrawal is not qualified. To be qualified, the IRA must have been open at least 5 tax years, and you must be age 59-1/2 or older.
Open 5 tax years works like this: Suppose you opened the account in January 2017, using a retroactive contribution for 2016. That makes 2016 year 1, so 2020 is year 5, and you would meet the 5 year rule. However, suppose you opened the account in 2018, and closed it in 2020. That's only 3 years.
