I just read an article "dissing" the future of owning dividend paying stocks. The argument was proffered that WHEN (not IF) the current 15% tax rate on QUALIFIED DIVIDENDS (there's a difference between Qualified and Ordinary) is changed back to the pre Bush era tax rates ---- that it will kill the market for these stocks.
Yeah -- there's some argument to be made... that there's a huge difference between a 15% rate and a top rate of 39% and blah blah blah.
I've been doing this for awhile now... I've seen the ups and downs of the market and lived through some boom and bust cycles.
I will state this - as I have to my accountant (doing this same argument but over the difference of long term vs short term capital gains)....
IF I MAKE ONE DOLLAR --- and I OWE 40 cents to the government -- I still get to keep 60 cents. Isn't it better to make 60 cents than it is to worry about paying a percentage to the government? My point to him was that it's better to make a huge pile of money.... and who cares about paying some of it out. TO ME -- I'd rather owe the government a fortune... because that means I made out HUGE (I kept 60 cents of every dollar!).
My personal income tax bill for 2011 was 1.7MM --- ask me how sad I was to have to pay that...
