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Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

Ever looked at MSFT or AAPL’s dividends? It’s a token “here’s your fucking dividend, now go away” percentage. (I’m sure it’s actually to placate funds that require a dividend, but I repeat myself.)

As a retired ‘softie, my spouse still holds a fair bit of MSFT, so I just looked: $0.98…on a $540.00 stock. Yeah, we won’t be living off that in our old age.

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Why would you want a dividend? It’s mathematically better for a business to do share buybacks and allow investors to choose when to sell shares so they can minimize tax liability.

That depends a whole lot on your tax jurisdiction, your other income and your investment strategy.

In both scenarios, the shareholder can get the same amount of cash if they want it. Except with a dividend, they are forced to pay tax now.

I suppose there could exist a jurisdiction where dividends are taxed less than capital gains. I would be curious to know if there are any.

Australia has one of, if not the highest rates of CGT in the world.

ASX dividend stocks are popular with retirees in particular because the dividends are fully franked, meaning you get a credit for the tax already paid on the dividends by the company.

If you’re in a low enough tax bracket, this can turn into a tax refund if the tax the company paid exceeds your own personal tax liability.

Interesting, thanks for the info.

No one is saying they want a dividend, I'm explaining how small the dividends of big tech companies are.

Yeah big dividends are for companies that can't do anything better than the money.

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