Dividends

No cameras are permitted. No transcripts are available. Only shareholders may attend. But we have a ringside seat at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. Here's what Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha said in this year's Q&A.

With just a week to go before April 17, it's crunch time for getting your taxes filed. If you're just now getting started, the first question you have to answer is which form you should use to file. Here's how to figure it out.

Is the U.S. tax code designed to be confusing? At more than 70,000 pages, its complexity is hard to overstate. But forget its size: Even in its most basic terms, the IRS seems determined to muddy the waters. To help you out, we've unpacked a few of the most weaselly weasel words.

A lot of tax talk focuses on tax brackets. But in order to get the full picture of what you hand over to Uncle Sam, you need to consider not your bracket, but your effective tax rate -- and those are two very different numbers.

On Tuesday, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney released his tax returns, which showed he only paid about 14% of his $21.6 million income in taxes. You'll probably never have that kind of money, but you can use some of his methods to save on your own taxes.

Macy's is raising its earnings outlook for the fourth quarter and full year due to a strong holiday season and says it will double its quarterly dividend to 20 cents a share. The retailer is also increasing its share repurchase program by $1 billion. The announcements came as the department store operator reported Thursday that a key measure of its December sales rose faster than analysts had expected.

With 2011 fast coming to a close, it's time to think about what's next -- if you dare. We've got the good news, the bad news, the key points to watch and some good advice on getting through 2012 with your finances intact.

Investments that generate income, have the potential for strong growth, and offer protection against stock market downturns: That compelling combination of attributes has made dividend stocks so popular with investors these days. To make the most of it, some investors are turning to ETFs.

The GOP approach of cutting taxes and slashing expenses has its attractions: Nobody likes paying taxes, and "tightening our belts" sounds ever so grown up. But these proposed cuts in taxes and spending will benefit the wealthy, while placing an outsized burden on the country's poor and middle class.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Motley Fool analyst Matt Koppenheffer decided to twist that nugget of wisdom a bit and look at what did work in past and figure out how we can repeat it. Doing so, he found five dividend payers that fit the bill today.