Municipal bonds

which are bonds issued by a state, municipality or county to finance its capital

expenditures and are mostly non-taxable, also have a tax-equivalent yield (TEY).

TEY is the pretax yield that a taxable bond needs to have for its yield to be the same

as that of a tax-free municipal bond, and it is determined by the investor's tax bracket.

While there are a lot of variations for calculating the different kinds of yields, a

lot of liberty is enjoyed by the companies, issuers, and fund managers to calculate,

report, and advertise the yield value as per their own conventions. 

Regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have

introduced a standard measure for yield calculation, called the SEC yield, which is the

standard yield calculation developed by SEC and is aimed at offering a standard

measure for fairer comparisons of bond funds. SEC yields are calculated after taking

into consideration the required fees associated with the fund.