How the Dividend Tax Works and the Dividend Tax Rates

The Dividend Tax 101

In the United States, dividend income is classified as any taxable distributions that are not treated as a long-term capital gain. For most people, the dividend tax is commonly paid on distributions made from regular C corporations to their stockholders. Virtually all shares of stock traded through your stock broker are going to be of this variety. The dividends are not tax-deductible to the corporation, as they are in many other countries, thus introducing severe criticism from some corner that the United States is one of the few nations that penalizes investment through the double taxation of dividends.

Dividend Tax Rates By Type

When it comes to the dividend tax there are several categories into which each dividend payment may fall. The dividend tax rules are spelled out in IRS Publication 550.

• Qualified Dividends . For the purposes of calculating the dividend tax, ordinary dividends are for stocks held more than 60 days during the 121-day period that begins 60 days before the ex-dividend date. These are taxed at what is known as the qualified dividend tax rate. which is 5% or 15% depending upon the income tax bracket into which the investor falls. For investors with personal income tax brackets of 25% or higher, they will pay a 15% dividend tax on their qualified dividends. For investors in a lower income tax bracket. they will pay a 5% dividend tax. Qualified dividends must be paid between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2010.

Sunset of Dividend Tax Relief Scheduled for January 1st, 2011

For illustrative purposes, let’s say you were the sole shareholder of a corporation that earned $100 million per year pre-tax. Your corporate taxes would be approximately 35%, or $35 million, leaving $65 million in net income. If you were to take all of these profits as a cash dividend, under the current system, you would owe 15%, or $9.75 million, leaving $55.25 million of your original $100 million in profit. If the dividend tax rates increase in 2011, you would owe $25.74 million, or 39.6%, leaving $39.26 million of your original profit for a total effective tax rate of 60.74%.

To get around this there are, of course, dividend tax techniques such as using an Sub-Chapter S Corporation or a Limited Liability Company with pass-through taxation. In those cases, there would be no dividend tax because you would pay personal income taxes on your $100 million in profit, or 39.6% in 2011, leaving $60.4 million after tax. This is why you often see wealthy families and business owners spending large sums on accountants and lawyers. By properly structuring their affairs, a simple decision about business form can result in paying half the dividend tax rate that would otherwise be owed!