[bobfl]

Interesting article on MLP investments. There is also a fund that is into MLPs that takes care of all the tax issues for you (KYN) and it is paying around 7%.
Click below to read article.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1790...le_lb_articles

[784caroline]

Its my understanding that MLPs, in essence, pay you a "Return of Capital" that allows such payments to be "Tax "Deffered". When this happens your principal declines so when you eventual sell or your estate sells, your basis may be zero or close to it and you will have to pay tax at that timeand teh then going rate of tax.
To me MLPs sound like a head ache for record keeping purposes!

The tax complexity of MLP's can be reduced if one uses a quality tax preparation software product (such as TurboTax) as pointed out in the article. The K-1's can be downloaded and input electronically, eliminating a lot of the complexity. The K-1's are generally not available until late in February or March. So, if one typically likes to file their tax return early, they may not get that chance, if they have to wait on the receipt of the K-1's. These types of securities are good for intended long-term holdings for the purpose of generating current portfolio income. It is true that the tax basis is reduced each year by the amount of the return of capital. However, if they are held and passed to the estate, while they are subject to estate tax, they get a stepped up basis for the beneficiaries of the estate. That means that the return of capital is not then subject to income taxes to the original investor or the beneficiary. I like the income stability of this class of securities. I will keep an eye on them if and when interest rates start to increase, because they are often fairly heavily leveraged and their performance can be affected by variances in interest rates. So, they are somewhat like public utilities with better current yields. So far, I like them as a component of a retirement income portfolio.