@ booshebach1 wrote:
Individual Tax-exempt bonds are easy but in order to claim tax exempt interest for AZ how can you identify that portion from muni mutual funds or ETFs like Vangard or Fidelity. It only shows the total from all states. In order to exempt on AZ state return we need to know what percentage tax free applies to AZ income.
If a company does not provide the complete info in it's mailing to you (or your downloaded 1099 composite materials), sometimes you really have to "drill down" to locate the info. It can be a time-intensive Easter-egg hunt each year at the brokerage websites, or even at individual fund/ETF websites to find the percentages by state. I'll go ahead and test the 2 company websites you mentioned, and see what I can come up with. If successful, I will put the steps in examples at the end of this posting that should get you there quickly.
At the major brokerage/fund companies webpage, there is usually a tax info section, sometimes called Tax Center, Tax Info, or similar. Then look for the end-of-year info sometimes called "2023 Tax Supplement" or similar. The terminology varies from company to company.
At the end of each year, they publish the list of funds with exempt interest dividends, and a list of the states and their percentage of the exempt dividends. Here's what I found when I tested the 2 companies you mentioned.
I went to Vanguard's website, selected "personal investor", then chose "resources", then "taxes". At the Taxes page, I scrolled down and chose "Tax Information for Vanguard Mutual Funds" and clicked on GET INFO. I ultimately arrived at this page:
Tax Information for Vanguard Mutual Funds
https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-education/taxes/funds-tax-information
Scroll way down that page to a section with large heading "Most often needed for municipal bond funds".
Right under that, you can view/print/download the PDF titled "Percentages of dividends distributed by state by Vanguard's municipal bond funds"
- State-specific bond funds are in Table 1.
- Table 2 is Tax-Exempt Interest Dividends by State, and it shows the AZ percentages for 9 municipal funds/ETF.
For Fidelity, at the main page it wasn't obvious, but with trial and error, I figured out you go to the tab "Accounts & Trade", and in the dropdown menu choose "Tax Forms & Information."
Then on the next page scroll down a little, and under "Ways to Prepare," click on the heading "Year-end distributions by Fidelity mutual funds."
On the next page the first tab is "Tax-Exempt Income Information".
Unless you want one of the few state-specific funds shown, navigate to the section "Non-state-specific tax-exempt income information".
To view/download/print a PDF choose the link "Tax-Exempt Income from Fidelity Funds", and you'll see AZ in the list and the percentage columns for the various funds.
