Mutual Fund Mastery interview preparation

Indian AMCs, distributors, registrars and the global fund houses that hire for the same skills — covering the trust structure, NAV and cut-off rules, SEBI scheme categorisation, debt risk and the Potential Risk Class matrix, passives, costs, taxation and distribution. Every question is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it; we do not invent attributions.

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Question bank

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions
100
Traced to a firm
32
Firms
19
Updated
September 2026
Asked at
All firmsVanguard5BlackRock3Franklin Templeton3Invesco3PIMCO3Fidelity Investments2J.P. Morgan2Morningstar2Neuberger Berman2Schroders2T. Rowe Price2Amundi1BNY Mellon1Goldman Sachs1Man Group1Northern Trust1State Street1Sycamore Partners1Wellington Management1
Topic
All topicsFund structure and regulation7NAV and operations6Scheme categorisation4Equity schemes5Debt schemes7Risk, liquidity and disclosure7Index funds and ETFs6Hybrid and solution schemes3Costs, plans and commissions6SIP and investor mechanics5Performance measurement6Taxation5Distribution, compliance and NISM5Portfolio construction and advice5Estimation and numeracy5Markets and industry6Career and fit12
Level
AnyCoreIntermediateHard
Type
AnyTechnicalCaseFitBrainteaserMarket view
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  1. 066Is a switch between two schemes of the same AMC a taxable event? And what are STT, stamp duty and TDS on mutual funds?TaxationIntermediatetechnicalIndian AMCsDistribution and sales

    Say this

    Yes, a switch is a redemption plus a purchase, fully taxable, and exit load applies on the redemption leg. That is true even between two plans of the same scheme, so a regular-to-direct switch triggers capital gains too. The transaction taxes are small but real: stamp duty on the way in, STT on the way out of equity schemes.

    Then walk it

    1. Switch and STP both work the same way — one redemption, one purchase, on the same day. There is no roll-over relief in Indian mutual fund taxation. A weekly STP is fifty-two taxable redemptions a year.
    2. Stamp duty: 0.005 percent on every purchase and switch-in of units, in force since July 2020. On a 10 lakh purchase that is 50 rupees, so it matters only for very high-frequency treasury flows.
    3. Securities transaction tax: 0.001 percent on redemption of equity-oriented scheme units. Debt schemes are outside STT.
    4. TDS: on IDCW payouts to resident investors, 10 percent above a threshold that was raised to 10,000 rupees a year. On capital gains for residents there is no TDS — the investor pays through advance tax and the return.
    5. For non-residents the position is different and this is a favourite follow-up: TDS is deducted at source on both IDCW and capital gains for NRIs, at rates depending on the type of gain, and treaty relief has to be claimed with a tax residency certificate.
    6. The advisory point that falls out of all this: never rebalance casually. Every reallocation between schemes is a tax event, which is precisely why a single dynamic asset allocation fund can be efficient for a client who would otherwise be switching twice a year.

    Where candidates lose it

    Saying a switch inside the same AMC, or between direct and regular plans of the same scheme, is tax-neutral. It is not, and this error produces angry clients and complaints. Also know that STT applies only to equity-oriented schemes.

    Expect next

    • Is TDS deducted on an NRI's redemption?
    • How does that change how you rebalance a portfolio?
    • Does stamp duty apply to an SIP instalment?

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.