I am Australian, and we have some differences in our tax regime. As I understand, the US tax regime, if money is put into an equity managed fund, indexed or not, and stays in that fund for the long term, over about six months, the dividends are classified as Qualifying, and tax on dividends is only 15%. So you can put some money into a 401K, which is tax advantaged, and also into a normal managed fund, where the money is available, but tax is not important.