Accelerated Dividend

An Accelerated Dividend happens when the normal dividend (or even, in some cases, a special dividend) is paid for a usually-logical reason. And that reason usually rhymes with the term "shmaxes." At various times in the modern era, tax rates on qualified (normal good ol' fashioned American style) dividends have been threatened to go up. A lot. And in the new Technocracy in which we live, founders ended up retaining billions and/or decibillions, and wanted bling. Expensive bling. So ahead of potentially onerous tax increments, founders pushed their boards to pay an accelerated, sometimes just one-time-ever dividend, which then saved the founder and others benefitting from it gobs of taxes. Microsoft, Oracle and a bunch of others played this one like a stratitaxivarious.