Divs: Ordinary, Qualified, Total

I believe not. I believe Total = Ordinary.

No. Qualified dividends are a subset of ordinary dividends.

Correct.

Where did you find the term "total dividends?"

It is a very misleading term, and if a payer used it, they should be strung up, along with those fund managers who report the short-term capital gains paid by the fund :-(

Qualified dividends are those dividends which tentatively qualify for a lower tax rate than non-qualified dividends.

So qualified dividends can be zero, or as much as ordinary dividends, or anywhere in-between.

On Sat, 24 May 2008 17:49:07 EDT, snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) wrote Re Re: Ordinary, Qualified, Total:

It's from my mother in laws trust as follows:

Grantor Tax Information Letter

Income: Dividend Income: Qualified .... Total for year .....

It is indeed a confusing document to read.

Thanks for the comments Art, and thanks also to Bill Brown and Phil Marti for their comments.

Vic Dura wrote: [...]

I thought the whole purpose of precisely numbered boxes on tax forms was to avoid this type of confusion.

Shouldn't the trust be reporting this on a Schedule K-1 (Form 1041) to avoid any confusion and ambiguity?

-Mark Bole

it is no more misleading than, say, "tax simplification act"

It sounds like this is a statement separate from the tax documents that the IRS requires. The IRS doesn't regulate documents like these. The SEC has some rules for mutual funds, to make it easier to compare funds, but I doubt they apply to trusts.