If you're a club treasurer, you've probably found it difficult to find the ex-dividend date associated with a dividend that your club has received. Current tax law allows for a lower tax rate for "qualifying" dividends, and the formula for determining if a dividend is qualifying or not relies on the ex-dividend date. If you enter the wrong date (or make up your own date), you could end up misreporting your taxable income to the IRS or find it difficult to reconcile your books with your brokerage firm's year-end reports.

That's why I'm happy to announce that StockCentral.com now provides a dividend history for any stock, including the ex-dividend date. You can find this information on our Research Links page in the Tools section of the web site. Navigate to that page, and enter a ticker symbol, then click the "View Dividends" link. You'll see the ex-dividend dates displayed as part of the dividend history for that stock.

You can use the shortcut links from myiclub.com and Club Accounting 3, as well. In Club Accounting 3, click on the appropriate stock symbol from the home page when you start the program.   In myiclub.com, click on the blue ICLUB icon next to the stock symbol on either the online home page, accounting home page, or securities home page. These links will take you directly to the Research Links page on StockCentral.com.

Note: for individual investors tracking their own portfolios, the ex-dividend date isn't as crucial to record when entering transactions in your portfolio manager for the simple reason that your year-end 1099-DIV reports provided by your broker will include the total amount of qualifying and non-qualifying dividends for the year. In a club situation, though, you need to know the dispensation of each dividend as it is paid out so that the appopriate amounts can be allocated to your partners for each dividend.

If you have further questions, visit the Clubhouse forum in our StockCentral Community.