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The week's question
In March 2025, in the thread "Re: OT, out", Umm asked the members: "Do you think it is because America is made up of magical soil that makes businesses based in America magically profitable?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
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Author: mungofitch ✹✺🐝 SILVER
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Number: of 22349 
Subject: Re: Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls . . .
Date: 09/13/26 3:40 PM
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If you don't like income for any reason, I think there are some not-long-dated UK gilts from the pre-2022 era, where the bulk of the returns will arrive as capital gains rather than income.
However, the return may be very slightly lower than 'yieldy' gilts, because I think CGT on gilts may have favourable tax treatment in the UK for high-rate UK taxpayers.


As it turns out, I'd prefer the reverse. Not because I care about current coupons one way or the other, but simply be cause I get more after tax total return : )
For UK investors, I gather the tax situation is very much better with lots of capital gains (untaxed for government bonds) and low coupons (taxed), so the bond vintages with the low coupons are more in demand by the large population of taxable UK residents. For me it makes no difference whether the return shows up as coupon or price change on government bonds, so the YTM and therefore after tax total return on the ones with the high coupons is quite a lot higher.

e.g., from your link, the December 2027 4.25% (high coupon) have a YTM of 4.54%, but the January 2028 0.125% (low coupon) has a YTM of only 4.309%. So, since the tax is a wash for me, I'd go for the first one.

Of course, perhaps I've misunderstood the reason for the difference, I'm no expert on gilts.

Jim
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This community has written 21,861 posts about Berkshire Hathaway. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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