Do dividend quotes for U.S. stocks include witheld taxes?
No. As a rule, the dividends you see in the distribution table are what you'll receive before paying any taxes. Tax rates differ between qualified and unqualified/ordinary dividends, so the distribution can't include taxes because tax rates may differ between investors. In my case I hold it in an Israeli account but the tax treaty between our countries still specifies 25% withheld tax This is another example of why tax rates differ between investors. If I hold SPY too, my tax rate will be very different because I don't hold it in an account like yours, so the listed dividend couldn't include taxes. The dividend quoted on a site like the one you linked to on Yahoo shows what 1 investor owning 1 share received from the company. It is not adjusted at all for taxes. (Actually some dividend quotes are adjusted but not for taxes... see below.)  It is not adjusted because most dividends are taxed as ordinary income. This means different rates for different people, and so for simplicity's sake the quotes just show what an investor would be paid.  You're responsible for calculating and paying your own taxes.  From the IRS website: Ordinary Dividends Ordinary (taxable) dividends are the most common type of distribution from a corporation or a mutual fund. They are paid out of earnings and profits and are ordinary income to you. This means they are not capital gains. You can assume that any dividend you receive on common or preferred stock is an ordinary dividend unless the paying corporation or mutual fund tells you otherwise. Ordinary dividends will be shown in box 1a of the Form 1099-DIV you receive. Now my disclaimer... what you see on a normal stock quote for dividend in Yahoo or Google Finance is adjusted. (Like here for GE.) Many corporations actually pay out quarterly dividends. So the number shown for a dividend will be the most recent quarterly dividend [times] 4 quarters. To find out what you would receive as an actual payment, you would need to divide GE's current $0.76 dividend by 4 quarters... $0.19. So you would receive that amount for each share of stock you owned in GE.
Typically, the discount is taxable at sale time But what about taxes?  When the company   buys the shares for you, you do not   owe any taxes. You are exercising your   rights under the ESPP. You have bought   some stock. So far so good. When you sell the stock, the discount   that you received when you bought the   stock is generally considered   additional compensation to you, so you   have to pay taxes on it as regular   income. Source: Turbotax.   Second source. Your pretax rate of return would be: 17% (100/85) In your scenario where the stock price is fixed at $100. Your tax rate would be your marginal rate.   If the stock stayed at 100, you would still be taxed as income on $15/share (the discount) and would receive no benefit for holding the stock one year. Assuming you are in the 25% tax bracket, your after tax rate of return would be 13% ((15*.75)+85)/85) I believe that tax will be withheld (at 30%?) on dividends paid to non-residents.  You can claim it back if your country has a tax treaty with the USA, but you will need to file.  You probably also need to file a W-series withholding form (eg a W9-BEN). Interesting question.  I would like to hear a more definitive answer. Assuming you bought the stocks with after-tax money, you only pay tax on the difference. Had you bought he shares in a pretax retirement account, such as an IRA or 401(k), the taxation waits until you withdraw, at which point, it's all taxed as ordinary income. Check out the NASDAQ and NYSE websites(the exchange in which the stock is listed) for detailed information. Most of the websites which collate dividend payments generally have cash payments history only e.g. Dividata. And because a company has given stock dividends in the past doesn't guarantee such in the future, I believe you already know that. "Are these all of the taxes or is there any additional taxes over these? Turn-over tax is not for retail investors. Other taxes are paid by the broker as part of transaction and one need not worry too much about it. Is there any ""Income tax"" to be paid for shares bought/holding shares? No for just buying and holding. However if you buy and sell; there would be a capital gain or loss. In stocks, if you hold a security for less than 1 year and sell it; it is classified as short term capital gain and taxes at special rate of 15%. The loss can be adjusted against any other short term gain. If held for more than year it is long term capital gain. For stock market, the tax is zero, you can't adjust long term losses in stock markets. Will the money received from selling shares fall under ""Taxable money for FY Income tax""? Only the gain [or loss] will be tread as income not the complete sale value. To calculate gain, one need to arrive a purchase price which is price of stock + Brokerage + STT + all other taxes. Similar the sale price will be Sales of stock - Brokerage - STT - all other taxes. The difference is the gain.  Will the ""Dividend/Bonus/Buy-back"" money fall under taxable category? Dividend is tax free to individual as the company has already paid dividend distribution tax. Bonus is tax free event as it does not create any additional value. Buy-Back is treated as sale of shares if you have participated. Will the share-holder pay ""Dividend Distribution Tax""? Paid by the company. What is ""Capital Gains""? Profit or loss of buying and selling a particular security." Incorrect.   Dividends are paid after tax, so whether they pay them or not has nothing to do with tax avoidance.  Additionally, dividends have little to no impact on the market cap of a company like amazon.  On top of all of that, amazon does not pay dividends at all, they invest their cash back into themselves to grow. This strategy reduces profit, and the growth drives up their market cap and drives down their cost of capital as a result. &gt; they can be taxed at the long term capital gains rate, whereas dividends are subject to a higher tax rate.  That's not true, is it? I'm fairly sure they're taxed at the same rate now. Buybacks are still better for shareholders, though, because those who don't want to sell have the option of just holding the stock. With dividends, everyone gets a dividend and the associated tax hit, whether they want it or not.  Edit: Oh, right. Ordinary dividends are taxed as ordinary income; qualified dividends are not. But aren't qualified dividends the modal type? It depends on your investment profile but basically, dividends increase your taxable income. Anyone making an income will effectively get 'lower returns' on their investments due to this effect. If you had the choice between identical shares that either give a dividend or don't, you'll find that stock that pays a dividend has a lower price, and increases in value more slowly than stock that doesn't. (all other things being equal)  There's a whole bunch of economic theory behind this but in short, the current stock price is a measure of how much the company is worth combined with an estimation of how much it will be worth in the future (NPV of all future dividends is the basic model). When the company makes profit, it can keep those profits, and invest in new projects or distribute a portion of those profits to shareholders (aka dividends). Distributing the value to shareholders reduces the value of the company somewhat, but the shareholders get the money now. If the company doesn't give dividends, it has a higher value which will be reflected in a higher stock price.  So basically, all other things being equal (which they rarely are, but I digress) the price and growth difference reflects the fact that dividends are paying out now. (In other words, if you wanted non-dividend shares you could get them by buying dividend shares and re-investing the dividend as new shares every time there was a payout, and you could get dividend-share like properties by selling a percentage of non-dividend shares periodically). Dividend income is taxable as part of your income right away, however taxes on capital gains only happen when you sell the asset in question, and also has a lower tax rate. If you buy and hold Berkshire Hatheway, you will not have to pay taxes on the gains you get until you decide to sell the shares, and even then the tax rate will be lower. If you are investing for retirement, this is great, since your income from other sources will be lower, so you can afford to be taxed then. In many jurisdictions, income from capital gains is subject to a different tax rate than the rest of your income, for example in the US for most people with money to invest it's either 15% or 20%, which will be lower than normal income tax would be (since most people with money to invest would be making enough to be in a higher bracket). Say, for example, your income now is within the 25% bracket. Any dividend you get will be taxed at that rate, so let's say that the dividend is about 2% and the growth of the stock is about 4%. So, your effective growth rate after taxation is 5.5% -- you lose 0.5% from the 25% tax on the dividend. If, instead, you had stock with the same growth but no dividend it would grow at a rate of 6%. If you never withdrew the money, after 20 years, $1 in the dividend stock would be worth ~$2.92 (1.055^20), whereas $1 in the non-dividend stock would be worth ~$3.21 (1.06^20). You're talking about a difference of 30 cents per dollar invested, which doesn't seem huge but multiply it by 100,000 and you've got yourself enough money to renovate your house purely out of money that would have gone to the government instead. The advantage here is if you are saving up for retirement, when you retire you won't have much income so the tax on the gains (even ignoring the capital gains effect above) will definitely be less then when you were working, however if you had a dividend stock you would have been paying taxes on the dividend, at a higher rate, throughout the lifetime of the investment.  So, there you go, that's what Mohnish Pabrai is talking about. There are some caveats to this. If the amount you are investing isn't large, and you are in a lower tax bracket, and the stock pays out relatively low dividends you won't really feel the difference much, even though it's there. Also, dividend vs. no dividend is hardly the highest priority when deciding what company to invest in, and you'll practically never be able to find identical companies that differ only on dividend/no dividend, so if you find a great buy you may not have a choice in the matter.  Also, there has been a trend in recent years to also make capital gains tax progressive, so people who have a higher income will also pay more in capital gains, which negates part of the benefit of non-dividend stocks (but doesn't change the growth rate effects before the sale).  There are also some theoretical arguments that dividend-paying companies should have stronger shareholders (since the company has less capital, it has to 'play nice' to get money either from new shares or from banks, which leads to less risky behavior) but it's not so cut-and-dried in real life. "Do you have other income that you are not considering?  Interest and dividends would be an example, but there are all sorts of options.   Also with your witholding is it set up such that your employers have any idea of your tax bracket ultimately based on your combined incomes?  Usually what they do is take out money assuming you will be in the tax bracket of any given paycheck spread out over the course of a year.  For example, for federal I had an option to select (in an online form that fills out my W4 for me) ""married: withold at higher single rate"" and did to try and cover this fact.  Eventually I may end up having to calculate my own witholding to fix a too-low problem like yours." The key there is Large companies.  The vast majority of companies in the US are small businesses with little or no international presence, and are taxed at the full 35%.  Their very large competitors, however, have the ability to flout US corporate taxes, and therefore keep more of their profits - whether in terms of retained earnings or higher dividends to shareholders. Here's an article on it that might help: http://thefinancebuff.com/restricted-stock-units-rsu-sales-and.html One of the tricky things is that you probably have the value of the vested shares and withheld taxes already on your W-2. This confuses everyone including the IRS (they sent me one of those audits-by-mail one year, where the issue was they wanted to double-count stock compensation that was on both 1099-B and W-2; a quick letter explaining this and they were happy). The general idea is that when you first irrevocably own the stock (it vests) then that's income, because you're receiving something of value. So this goes on a W-2 and is taxed as income, not capital gains. Conceptually you've just spent however many dollars in income to buy stock, so that's your basis on the stock. For tax paid, if your employer withheld taxes, it should be included in your W-2. In that case you would not separately list it elsewhere. "OK, I found this filing by JCI on the SEC website: U.S. Federal Income Tax Consequences of the Distribution to U.S. Holders For U.S. federal income tax purposes, the distribution will not be eligible for treatment as a tax-free distribution by Johnson Controls with respect to its stock. Accordingly, the distribution will be treated as a taxable distribution by Johnson Controls to each Johnson Controls shareholder in an amount equal to the fair market value of the Adient ordinary shares received by such shareholder (including any fractional shares deemed received and any Adient ordinary shares withheld on account of any Irish withholding taxes), determined as of the distribution date (such amount, the ""Distribution Amount""). The Distribution Amount received by a U.S. holder will be treated as a taxable dividend to the extent of such U.S. holder's ratable share of current or accumulated earnings and profits of Johnson Controls for the taxable year of the distribution (as determined under U.S. federal income tax principles). Any portion of the Distribution Amount that is treated as a dividend will not be eligible for the dividends-received deduction allowed to corporations under the Code. My broker's 1099-B form tells me that I received a Qualified Dividend from JCI on 10/31/2016 of $512.44, which would be equivalent to $45.349 valuation of ADNT as of the spinoff date for my 11.3 shares (before the 0.3 shares were sold as cash-in-lieu) ." What do you think of the argument that corporations shouldn't pay any tax, since investors pay tax on the dividends, and if the corporations paid too, that would be double taxation?  Of course, not all corporate income goes to pay dividends. Much of the rest is deducted as business expense.  Is there some corporate income which should properly be taxed? "Do I have to pay the stock investment income tax if I bought some   stocks in 2016, it made some profits but I didn't sell them at the end   of 2016? You pay capital gains taxes only when you sell the stocks. When you sell the stock within a year you will pay the short term capital gains rate which is the same rate as your ordinary income. If the stock pays dividends, however, you will have to pay taxes in the year that the dividend was paid out to you. I bought some stocks in 2011, sold them in 2012 and made some gains.   Which year of do I pay the tax for the gains I made? You would pay in 2012, likely at the short term gain rate. I bought some stocks, sold them and made some gains, then use the   money plus the gains to buy some other stocks before the end of the   same year. Do I have to pay the tax for the gains I made in that year? Yes. There is a specific exception called the ""Wash Sale Rule"", but that would only apply if you lost money on the original sale and bought a substantially similar or same stock within 30 days. Do I get taxed more for the money I made from buying and selling   stocks, even if the gains is only in hundreds? More than what? You pay taxes based on the profit you make from the investment. If you held it less than a year it is the same tax rate as your regular income. If you held it longer you pay a lower tax rate which is usually lower than your regular tax rate." "Has anyone ever proposed significantly lowering the US corporate tax while simultaneously raising dividend taxes for high income earners? Hell, many economists believe that corporate income should be taxed at 0%. If you do this but are worried about ""teh evil corporations"" becoming too big and powerful, that's what a high tax on dividend income is for. You can't personally become rich from a corporation without earning dividend or salary income from a corporation's coffers."