tax breaks and loopholes. my friend.. for example most board of directors choose to take the actual salary in the form of stock options and maintain a very low general salary that's why they always say how much they make but rarely how they are actually paid out... say around 50K(some even as low as $35K) and since dividend income is taxed considerable less that our regular income they end up paying less than our lowest tax rate.. capital gains is taxed at about 25%(maximum: only 50% is taxable and minus 50%(max) tax rate to the taxable percentage) and dividend is about 28-30 % roughly WITHOUT jumping through some more loop holes(its considerably lower with them) considering they should be paying a lot higher for their respective actual income level... .. JUST AN EXAMPLE..... actual individual tax bracket WILL vary.... the posted max tax rate is basically to make the average Joe feel better knowing that at least he isn't paying the max rate in reality very few people have to pay it.
Wrong. Come see my taxes some time. Yes dividends are taxed lower but only because they are taxed first at the corporate level before being distributed to the shareholder, me. Dividends are taxed at 30 percent while the highest tax is 40 percent so not that different when you figure the company paid tax on it already. Stop beîng a big expert unless you are making over 500k and taking a good portion of it in dividends.
As well many people even in lower tax brackets get dividends and can benefit from capital Gains.
so in summary unless you want to sit down and show me all the tax I can save and how you did it.....shhhhhhhhhhhhh. I have a full time in office accountant and a large outside auditor who handle it for me and I would love to pay less tax.