{"id":1962,"date":"2012-03-20T01:07:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T16:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-03-20\/1962"},"modified":"2012-03-20T01:07:45","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T16:07:45","slug":"apples-dividend-a-windfall-for-non-shareholders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-03-20\/1962","title":{"rendered":"Apple&#8217;s Dividend: a Windfall for Non-Shareholders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<div class='resize_warning' id='arw1962'>\n<b>NOTE<\/b>: Images with an <img class='raw' width='19' height='18' src='\/i\/s\/red_zoomup.gif'\/> icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I don't understand Apple's newly-announced dividend, nor the coverage\nI've seen so far, which seems to equate the dividend with &#8220;free money&#8221;,\nmanna from heaven, as if two fundamental facts didn't exist:<\/p>\n\n<ol><li>taking money from the company and giving to the stock holders reduces the value of\nthe stock by exactly that amount, and<\/li>\n<li>for most stock holders, the dividend is <span class='nobr'>a taxable<\/span> event.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<p>The end result is that most stock holders wind up with <b>less<\/b>\nbecause every quarter you must pay <span class='nobr'>a tax<\/span> on the mere act of owning the\nstock, <span class='nobr'>a tax<\/span> that you never had to pay before.<\/p>\n\n<p>Why on earth would Apple do this to its shareholders?<\/p>\n\n<p>Some folks like to have a steady income, sure, but such folks have\nalways had the option to sell <span class='nobr'>a few<\/span> shares when they needed it, as they\nneeded it, so the tax ramifications of ownership were always within each\nindividual shareholder's control. Now it's not.<\/p>\n\n<p>It's rare, but some companies offer a &#8220;shares in lieu of dividend&#8221;\noption such that you get additional shares instead of <span class='nobr'>a cash<\/span> dividend,\nwhich makes it <span class='nobr'>a non<\/span>-taxable event, and so a <i>non-loss<\/i> event.\nUnfortunately, Apple does not plan to offer this. (<span class='nobr'>I know<\/span> this because <span class='nobr'>I\nsent<\/span> an inquiry to their investor relations 20 minutes after the\nannouncement, and surprisingly received <span class='nobr'>a personal<\/span> reply not long\nafter.)<\/p>\n\n<p>Today's announcement makes for <span class='nobr'>a huge<\/span> windfall for the IRS and other\ntax-collecting agencies around the world, and therefore, indirectly for\nmuch of the (first-)world's population.... most everyone <i>except<\/i> for Apple\nshareholders who foot the bill.<\/p>\n\n<p><b>Basically, Apple just introduced <span class='nobr'>a tax<\/span> on being an Apple shareholder.<\/b>\n<br\/>Why on earth would Apple do this?<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don't understand Apple's newly-announced dividend, nor the coverage I've seen so far, which seems to equate the dividend with \"free money\", manna from heaven, as if two fundamental facts didn't exist:<\/p> taking money from the company and giving to the stock holders reduces the value of the stock by exactly that amount, and for most stock holders, the dividend is a taxable event. <p>The end result is that most stock holders wind up with <b>less<\/b> because every quarter you must pay a tax on the mere act of owning the stock, a tax that you never had to pay [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}