The tool
Where to hold each fund
Most of the advice you will find says to shelter whatever carries the heaviest tax bill. That is right for bonds by a factor of four, and it is wrong for foreign funds in a way that flips the answer over.
The right question for a scarce shelter is what a sheltered dollar saves, not which asset sounds tax-inefficient. For everything except a foreign holding the second term is zero and this collapses to the familiar rule.
priority = (recurring tax if held in taxable) − (irrecoverable withholding if sheltered)
Foreign withholding is paid and permanently lost inside a traditional IRA and a Roth alike. An IRA is exempt from taxation under this subtitle, so it has no tax to credit against and a §904 numerator of zero. No IRS publication states this in terms; it is asserted from the statute.
Your accounts
Run it at your own rates
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US federal, with the 3.8% surtax on investment income already inside both figures where it applies. State tax is left out and adds to every line.
The two shelters behave identically here. Foreign tax is lost inside both.
It books income inside itself that it has not distributed. Counting that puts it first in the queue; counting only what shareholders were taxed on puts it seventh. Its account does not change either way.
That leaves 34% of your money in a taxable brokerage account, and 66% of it sheltered.
Every fund with foreign tax withheld outranks every fund without it. The weakest of them, VEA, saves 56.0 basis points a year per sheltered dollar against the strongest US line, AVLV, at 42.1. VTI comes last at 25.4.
| # | Fund | Weight | Tax if taxable | Credit lost if sheltered | Saved per sheltered dollar | Goes in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IDMOInvesco S&P International Developed Momentum ETF | 5% | 160.5 bp | 12.3 bp | 148.2 bp | Sheltered |
| 2 | AVESAvantis Emerging Markets Value ETF | 5% | 130.0 bp | 46.0 bp | 84.0 bp | Sheltered |
| 3 | IEMGiShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF | 5% | 88.8 bp | 24.5 bp | 64.3 bp | Sheltered |
| 4 | DFIVDimensional International Value ETF | 10% | 96.0 bp | 32.3 bp | 63.7 bp | Sheltered |
| 5 | VEAVanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF | 10% | 70.5 bp | 14.5 bp | 56.0 bp | Sheltered |
| 6 | AVLVAvantis U.S. Large Cap Value ETF | 15% | 42.1 bp | 0.0 bp | 42.1 bp | Sheltered |
| 7 | RSSTStacked US equity and managed futures, distributed basis | 30% | 33.7 bp | 0.0 bp | 33.7 bp | Partly sheltered16% of the portfolio fits |
| 8 | VTIVanguard Morningstar Total Stock Market ETF | 20% | 25.4 bp | 0.0 bp | 25.4 bp | Taxable account |
Computed at 23.8% on qualified dividends and 40.8% on ordinary income, on yields and withheld rates as of 2026-08-12. Sheltering the foreign funds destroys 8.8 basis points a year of foreign tax credit, permanently and in a Roth and a traditional account alike. The last column has already subtracted it.
The finding
Every foreign fund outranks every US fund
You have probably read the opposite: hold international in the taxable account so you can claim the foreign tax credit back. Sheltering all of them here does destroy 8.8 basis points a year of credit, permanently. It buys back several times that, because foreign funds yield more and a bigger dividend in a taxable account is a bigger tax bill.
At 23.8% on qualified dividends, the weakest foreign line on the shelf is VEA at 56.0 basis points saved per sheltered dollar, against AVLV at 42.1 for the strongest US line. The gap holds at every one of the 3 brackets the tool offers except the 0% one, where there is no credit to lose and nothing much to save either.
And VTI comes last, at 25.4 basis points. It is the cheapest, broadest, calmest fund on the shelf, which is exactly why it belongs in the account with no protection. Its dividend is the smallest tax bill you can put on a scarce sheltered dollar.
Worked, server-side
The queue at equal thirds
One investor, equal nominal thirds in a Roth, a traditional account and a taxable brokerage account, at the top marginal rates. Rendered here whether or not the tool above loaded.
| # | Fund | Weight | Saved per sheltered dollar | Goes in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IDMO | 5% | 148.2 bp | Sheltered |
| 2 | AVES | 5% | 84.0 bp | Sheltered |
| 3 | IEMG | 5% | 64.3 bp | Sheltered |
| 4 | DFIV | 10% | 63.7 bp | Sheltered |
| 5 | VEA | 10% | 56.0 bp | Sheltered |
| 6 | AVLV | 15% | 42.1 bp | Sheltered |
| 7 | RSST | 30% | 33.7 bp | Partly sheltered |
| 8 | VTI | 20% | 25.4 bp | Taxable |
What would break it
Three things this rests on
The share of each dividend that gets the low rate. Part of what a fund pays out is taxed at the dividend rate and the rest at your income rate, which is 17 points dearer at the top bracket. Every figure above uses the fraction each sponsor filed rather than a round assumption: 66.27% for VEA, 44.48% for AVES, 34.82% for IEMG, 25% for IDMO. Assume they were all fully qualified instead and the answer for emerging markets flips over. That one input decides the sign.
The stacked fund files two readings of itself. It books income inside itself that it has not paid out. Count only what shareholders were taxed on and it sits seventh in the queue; count everything and it goes straight to the top, which is what the portfolio page prints. The tool defaults to the audited reading and offers the other. Either way the fund belongs in a shelter, and the asymmetry is about ten to one, so the measurement can stay open without stalling the decision.
Your yields are not these yields. Every figure is US federal, for one stated investor, on filings as of 2026-08-12. State income tax is left out and adds to every line. A yield is the input a ranking like this is most sensitive to, and none of these is point-in-time.
Structural and tax-aware edges, checked 2026-08-12.