Washington Post endorsement: Four more years for President Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Post Co. will pay its 2013 dividends before the end of this year to try to spare investors from anticipated tax increases.

The media and education company said Friday that its dividend of $9.80 per share is payable Dec. 27 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 17. The payout is instead of regular quarterly dividends next year.

Washington Post is the latest company to move up its quarterly payout or issue a special end-of-year payment to protect investors from potentially having to pay higher taxes on dividend income starting in January.

Since 2003 investors have paid a maximum 15 percent on dividend income. But that historically low rate will expire in January unless Congress and President Barack Obama reach a compromise on taxes and government spending. As it stands, dividends will be taxed as ordinary income in 2013, the same as wages, so rates will go up depending on which income bracket a taxpayer is in. For the highest earners, the dividend rate would jump to 43.4 percent.

Hmmm, it seems they are trying to avoid paying their fair share.



  1. noname says:

    Are you surprised?

  2. Dallas says:

    Teapublicans are ok with jumping off the cliff and burden 98% of Americans because they don’t want to give the 1% tax hike of 3%.

    Why do Teapublicans hate 98% of Americans?

    • Mextli says:

      Because we want to level the playing field. It’s the patriotic duty of ALL to pay taxes. I hear Warren Buffett just mailed in a check for $ 109.

      • Mextli says:

        Whoops

        $1,000,000,000

        • msbpodcast says:

          Worse part is he and the other 12,400 billionaires in this country can afford to pay off the whole debt run up by the Repubes over the eight years of the Shrub regime, (when deficits didn’t matter,) and run up by the Dumb-as-crap during the 4 years of the O’Mama regime, (when deficits were inevitable,) and still have more money than they can possibly spend in two consecutive life times.

          Enough assets of varying liquidity, (not even fixed or immovable assets,) to cover the entire US debt is actually sitting in the accounts of the rich, currently earning 0% income because little Timmy Geitner is holding the fed rate at 0%…

          This is a fuckin’ rich country and its got some fuckin’ rich people living in it.

      • Dallas says:

        Explain ‘level the playing field’.

        Hint: Taxes are levied on where the wealth is.

    • msbpodcast says:

      On principle!!!/i>

      They hate government mandated anything, but don’t you dare touch their medicare, not realizing the fact that its a government program.

      Principles backed by an intelligent mind is a wonderful thing to behold.

      Principles without the backing of intelligence is a religion.

    • dusanmal says:

      We in Physics like to do “mind experiments”… So, here is one for you: if 98% ARE paying fair share and those 2% are not… Imagine what would happen with this particular society if we suddenly find that (say, alien invasion or more likely Communists winning and removing those people) those 2% and all that is theirs vanished. As remaining (previously 98%) who are paying their fair share are all that remains, I guess there would be no deficit, poverty or any social strife at all. Utopia on Earth. Common sense analysis points to exactly opposite results. So, stop with the BS. Top 2% are paying more than is fairly their share and carrying this society on their backs. (And I am definitely NOT in that category, nor likely to be).

      • Mark says:

        Obviously you are having trouble in your field getting published. Your argument seems to make a few assumptions about the distribution of wealth. Lets play a mind game, You in the top 2% (likely a poor assumption) run a large manufacturing company. You can reduce cost and improve value to stockholders by either outsourcing jobs or mechanization. But that will through a thousand people out of work. If you decide to keep the people employed, the board of directors will likely through you out because you don’t act in the best interest of the company. What do you do?

        The truth is it takes less and less people to build the stuff we need forcing people out of jobs or at least to take lower paying jobs. The fewer people on the top make more money and those at the bottom make less. Some can be reeducated for other jobs, but those that worked on a production line for 30 years might find that difficult. Who will pay for the training of those that can be? The company, doesn’t need them any more so they don’t want to pay. Many don’t want the government to pay for it. So now what when they are out of bread, tell them to eat cake? How well did that work out for the last person that said that.

        I am old enough that my personal impact would not be that great (very far from 2%, but have enough).

        Taxes need to go up, more for those that can afford it, and yes government budget needs to be cut.

    • MikeN says:

      Hey, I thought the Bush tax cuts were for the wealthy, top 1%? Where’d this other 98% come from?

  3. WmDE says:

    Companies Rush to Pay Early Dividends to Avoid 2013 Tax Hike

    So what? It’s legal. It doesn’t benefit the company. The shareholders benefit one time. I’ll let you in on another secret, dividend pay out will now decrease. When a company conserves cash its value goes up. Investors will now go for capital gains.

    Avoiding taxes is legal. Cheating on taxes is not.

    Someone on this blog wrote about marriage The piece of paper was really just a formality to keep the government from screwing us taxwise.

    Everybody does it.

    • msbpodcast says:

      Uh, clipping your coupons (living off your investments) is capital gains.

      That’s what sunk Mittenz. He couldn’t show his tax returns because they showed practically no income. (We were electing somebody who didn’t need a salary, he was just going to plunder the treasury and the department of the interior. [Buy land! God isn’t making any more].)

      • WmDE says:

        Uh, clipping your coupons (living off your investments) is capital gains.

        Interest income actually.

    • McCullough says:

      Yep, that was me. I didn’t vote for more taxes. The point is Washington Post did.

      • WmDE says:

        For the Washington Post this is a one time event.

        Marriage is year after year after year after year after year after year after yea………………………….

  4. The0ne says:

    Lol, this is last week’s news. See Costco, you’ll love their story.

  5. Cap'nKangaroo says:

    This action by the business side of the WP bothers me not at all.

    What does bother me is hugely successful US corporations that escape paying ANY corporate tax (i.e. General Electric, etc.). And corporations that twist themselves in knots to realize profits overseas to escape US taxes and now lobby heavily for special breaks to bring those profits back home tax-free.

  6. New York Minute says:

    Dividend payouts go a majority of the time to folks with incomes over $250K. Again, y’all have your shorts in a bunch over folks that represent nothing like the majority of Americans.

    I realize there’s an elitist ethos of self-congratulation characteristic of commenters here; but, that doesn’t justify any satisfaction from screwing the neighborhood down the road. Refusing to pay a fair share of a progressive tax system is just another example of inflated self-worth that is guaranteed to come with more money than brains.

  7. I think 15 percent dividend rate was good for investors. In the present time it has jumped to 43.4 percent which is a high dividend rate. It is good for all the companies to pay early dividends so that they don’t need to pay tax in the upcoming years.


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