VEA is very likely more tax-friendly to hold in a Taxable account (more qualified distributions) than VWO. Also, very much like VTI = 85% VOO (S&P-500) + 15% VXF (Extended Market), you can skip the US extended market and still get 85% of the composition and near 100% of the performance of VTI per the chart below. Same principle applies to VEA and VWO (i.e., you could skip emerging markets at the market weighting and be just fine; tilts to overweight emerging markets, or any sector/size, or not typically recommended). If you are dead-set on including VWO, then put it in a Roth account to avoid the tax-inefficiency of holding that in Taxable (you won't get the FTC in a Roth, but you won't get a surprise tax-bill either). VEA should be 75% of your total int'l stock while VWO is the other 25% (again, I'd say just skip VWO and use VEA in Taxable to get the FTC).Is there a reason you excluded emerging markets?
You can try to estimate the tax efficiency (or inefficiency) of VWO and decide that the FTC will likely offset that the foreign tax and the unqualified dividends tax, relative to the LTCG tax rate, such that it's worthwhile holding in Taxable, but my default recommendation for int'l stock is VEA in Taxable and nothing else (the FTC typically doesn't even recover 100% of the foreign tax, let alone any added tax due to a higher percentage of unqualified dividends for VWO).
10y History of TSM vs VOO as of 17-Apr-2025
Recent Tax-efficiency of Total Int'l Funds
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Note that I used terms like "very likely, nearly, and typically" because tax-efficiency changes year-to-year and in some years it might be that a foreign stock fund has a higher percentage of qualified distributions than in other years. This kind of recommendation assumes the recent past looks like the near-term future, but I'm sure you know the standard caveat in every prospectus you've ever read about past results and future performance.
Statistics: Posted by bonesly — Fri Sep 26, 2025 3:08 pm — Replies 3 — Views 279