[Moonman62]

Someone can tell me if I am wrong, but it was my understanding that the idea behind eliminating taxes on dividends was to encourage companies to pay out dividends to investors rather than encourage holding. I thought it was related to reducing some of the bad practices that led to cooking the books, Enron's, etc, where the small investor (stock holder) is the biggest loser. It made a lot of sense to me when it was explained.

Reagan the optimist would have explained it as a matter of principle -- the elimination of double taxation. The current crowd of pessimists and government control freaks see every team of corporate management as crooks. The government should make it very difficult for them to decide what to do with the money.

[Magnum44]

Reagan the optimist would have explained it as a matter of principle -- the elimination of double taxation. The current crowd of pessimists and government control freaks see every team of corporate management as crooks. The government should make it very difficult for them to decide what to do with the money.

I wholeheartedly agree about the double taxation issue. But I don't think of protecting the investor from unaccountable corporate greed as being a government control freak. It is obvious from all the scandels of late that some form of responsibility and accountability has to be placed on those who invest and spend other peoples money. On the other hand there are many companies who are very responsible about this. Any regs put in place should not hamper their ability to generate product, revenue, profit, and growth; ultimately increasing the value of the investors stock.

I am not enough of an economist to suggest the details of implementing this. I only see this as making sense.