[nostrademons]

You do, but that's why dividends are becoming increasingly rare in the stock market. Many firms are preferring buybacks instead, which cause a pop in the stock price for remaining stockholders and so get taxed as capital gains.

[sokoloff]

Qualified dividends (which is most of them) are also taxed at long-term capital gains rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_dividend

[malz]

I don't believe "dividends are becoming increasingly rare in the stock market". One measure of that is to compare the S&P 500 yield with treasury yield, the latter being near a historic low, but the S&P yield near a consistent 2% for over a decade, and quite attractive now relative to treasuries.

http://avondaleam.com/sp-500-dividend-vs-10-year-treasury-yi...