Quote from robbie380:
ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (âAvalonBayâ or the âCompanyâ) (NYSE:AVB - News) announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a combined regular and special Common Stock dividend (âCombined Dividendâ) of $2.70 per share. The Combined Dividend is payable on January 29, 2009, to holders of record of the Companyâs Common Stock, par value $0.01 per share, at the close of business on December 29, 2008. AvalonBayâs Common Stock will begin trading "ex-dividend" on December 24, 2008.
A portion of the Combined Dividend in the amount of $0.8925 per share represents payment of the regular dividend for the quarter ended December 31, 2008, and the remaining portion represents an additional special dividend payment (âSpecial Dividendâ) in the amount of $1.8075 per share.
The Special Dividend was declared to distribute excess income attributable to gains on asset sales from the Companyâs disposition activities during 2008 in which an historically high level of asset sales were completed. During 2008, the Company sold ten communities with aggregate gains recognized for federal income tax purposes of $352 million. The Special Dividend is intended to enable the Company to avoid corporate level income taxes for 2008 and reduce federal excise taxes. The Company currently anticipates it will incur approximately $3 million of federal excise taxes for 2008. The following table summarizes 2008 disposition activity:
seems pretty straight forward from the press release...which release or filing were you looking at?