1.   And grandparents or others considering using fund shares to pay school tuition or medical expenses on behalf of someone will generally need to sell the shares first.

2.   Both Fidelity and MFS Investment Managment were selling more fund shares last year.

3.   But after stock prices continued their rebound late last month, investors again returned to buying fund shares.

4.   But selling fund shares at the time would have meant a large tax bite this April.

5.   But they said most of those who called did not sell their fund shares, and the number of transactions was not unusually high.

6.   Buying shares just before the dividend is set means you will owe taxes on payments, even if you immediately reinvest the dividends in more fund shares.

7.   By the same token, if you are thinking of selling fund shares, do it before the distribution.

8.   Capital gains distributions are taxable, even if the owner of the mutual fund shares decides to take them in the form of additional fund shares rather than cash.

9.   ETFs tend to keep their capital gains in the fund, and investors pay taxes when they sell their fund shares.

10.   Even so, investors doing year-end tax planning face more complicated decisions about which fund shares to sell, if any.