Is it better to reinvest dividends or take cash?
Cashing out instead will preclude you from multiplying your investment. It May Take Longer To Achieve Long-Term Financial Goals: Dividend reinvestment leads to compounded growth. This makes it easier (and faster) to achieve your long-term financial goals versus keeping cash in a savings account.
Dividend reinvestment has some drawbacks. One downside is that investors have no control over the price at which they buy shares. If the stock gains significant value, they'd still buy shares at what could be a high price.
If you reinvest dividends, you can supercharge your long-term returns because of the power of compounding. Your dividends buy more shares, which increases your dividend the next time, which lets you buy even more shares, and so on.
Reinvested dividends may be treated in different ways, however. Qualified dividends get taxed as capital gains, while non-qualified dividends get taxed as ordinary income. You can avoid paying taxes on reinvested dividends in the year you earn them by holding dividend stocks in a tax-deferred retirement plan.
When you are 5-10 years from retirement, stop automatic dividend reinvestment. This is when you transition from an accumulation asset allocation to a de-risked asset allocation. In Summary: When in accumulation, reinvest dividends. When in transition or drawdown, don't!
- High-yield savings accounts.
- Money market funds.
- Short-term certificates of deposit.
- Series I savings bonds.
- Treasury bills, notes, bonds and TIPS.
- Corporate bonds.
- Dividend-paying stocks.
- Preferred stocks.
Dividends can be classified either as ordinary or qualified. Whereas ordinary dividends are taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividends that meet certain requirements are taxed at lower capital gain rates.
Look for $12,000 Per Year in Dividends
To make $1,000 per month in dividends, it's better to think in annual terms. Companies list their average yield on an annual basis, not based on monthly averages. So you can make much more sense of how much you might earn if you build your numbers around annual goals as well.
To generate $5,000 per month in dividends, you would need a portfolio value of approximately $1 million invested in stocks with an average dividend yield of 5%. For example, Johnson & Johnson stock currently yields 2.7% annually. $1 million invested would generate about $27,000 per year or $2,250 per month.
It is possible to achieve financial freedom by living off dividends forever. That isn't to say it's easy, but it's possible. Those starting from nothing admittedly have a hard road to retirement-enabling passive income.
Are reinvested dividends taxed twice?
Dividends are taxable regardless of whether you take them in cash or reinvest them in the mutual fund that pays them out. You incur the tax liability in the year in which the dividends are reinvested.
Form 1099-DIV - Reinvested Dividends. The corporation in which you own stock may have a dividend reinvestment plan. This plan lets you choose to use your dividends to buy (through an agent) more shares of stock in the corporation instead of receiving the dividends in cash.
Your “qualified” dividends may be taxed at 0% if your taxable income falls below $44,625 (if single or Married Filing Separately), $59,750 (if Head of Household), or $89,250 (if (Married Filing Jointly or qualifying widow/widower) (tax year 2023). Above those thresholds, the qualified dividend tax rate is 15%.
The 4% rule says people should withdraw 4% of their retirement funds in the first year after retiring and remove that dollar amount, adjusted for inflation, every year after. The rule seeks to establish a steady and safe income stream that will meet a retiree's current and future financial needs.
Mutual funds
For certain preferred stock, the security must be held for 91 days out of the 181-day period, beginning 90 days before the ex-dividend date. The amount received by the fund from that dividend-generating security must have been subsequently distributed to you.
How Long Do I Need to Own a Stock to Collect the Dividend? To collect a stock's dividend you must own the stock at least two days before the record date and hold the shares until the ex-date.
- Stocks.
- Real Estate.
- Private Credit.
- Junk Bonds.
- Index Funds.
- Buying a Business.
- High-End Art or Other Collectables.
Treasury Bonds
Investors often gravitate toward Treasurys as a safe haven during recessions, as these are considered risk-free instruments. That's because they are backed by the U.S. government, which is deemed able to ensure that the principal and interest are repaid.
Long-term certificates of deposit. Overview: Certificates of deposit, or CDs, are issued by banks and generally offer a higher interest rate than savings accounts. And long-term CDs may be better options when you expect rates to fall, allowing you to keep your money earning higher rates for years.
Without double taxation, many argue, that individuals could own large amounts of stock in corporations and live off of their dividends without ever paying taxes on what they are individually earning. Corporations can avoid double taxation by electing not to pay dividends.
How do I get tax free dividends?
Consider using a retirement account
Owning dividend-paying investments inside a retirement account could shelter dividends from taxes or defer taxes on them.
Pension payments, annuities, and the interest or dividends from your savings and investments are not earnings for Social Security purposes. You may need to pay income tax, but you do not pay Social Security taxes.
If, for example, your portfolio gets to a value of $1.5 million, you could invest in a fund or multiple investments that yield an average of 3.3%. At that rate, you could generate $50,000 in annual dividends.
- ARR. ARMOUR Residential REIT Inc. 19.44. 0.10. ...
- ORC. Orchid Island Capital Inc. 8.78. ...
- AGNC. AGNC Investment Corp. 9.68. ...
- OXSQ. Oxford Square Capital Corp. 3.16. ...
- EARN. Ellington Residential Mortgage REIT. 6.99. ...
- SLRC. Solar Capital Ltd. 15.16. ...
- PFLT. PennantPark Floating Rate Capital Ltd. 11.14. ...
- MAIN. Main Street Capital Corporation. 47.15.
Too many people are paid a lot of money to tell investors that yields like that are impossible. But the truth is you can get a 9.5% yield today--and even more. But even at 9.5%, we're talking about a middle-class income of $4,000 per month on an investment of just a touch over $500K.