For greater clarification on a few items, depending on the income of the corporation, many private-company dividends could fall into either eligible or ineligible. For return of capital, it is zero per cent today, but it essentially serves as a deferred capital gain.Article content
In general, earning steady income from investments makes sense even if we’re talking about lowering investment income in taxable accounts. A study of the S&P 500 going back 80 years found dividends made up between 25 per cent and 75 per cent of total returns depending on the decade. As a result, I am a fan of dividends, but how do you balance this with a lower tax bill?
If you don’t have any taxable accounts , then being strategic about where investments sit is generally not very relevant. Even if you require a monthly cash flow, keep in mind you can still sell an investment to raise this cash. From a tax perspective, if it is in a taxable account, this will generate capital gains , and each dollar will result in a lower tax rate than interest income.Alphabet Inc., Constellation Software Inc. and many other stocks don’t pay any dividend at all.