dealtn wrote:tjh290633 wrote:Incidentally, how practical is holding a large part of your portfolio as Berkshire Hathaway shares and selling to provide an income. I realise that there are B-shares, which have a much lower capital value than the original shares, but with a high capital value, selling fractions is not a feasible way of obtaining income.
Not very practical at all I would say. It's never been a share I have had any interest in owning, and I can't see that changing.
I shall have to leave to someone else to provide a different answer if there is one, and presumably it is more meaningful if that came from somebody that owns it, and sought to derive an income in the manner you describe.
I own 100 of the B shares in BRK. As TJH notes even the lower-priced B shares are $280 each which is a lot, although less than MicroSoft, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, Google and a few others. The A shares are ridiculous.
So it certainly would be practicable to sell off the B shares to create an "income". The appeal in this regard with BRK is that it collects dividends from its underlying investments but does not pay them out, which a fund could not legally do but since BRK is a common stock, it can choose to do that.
Assuming that someone is well off enough to not need dividends then holding only BRK and selling shares, fractionally if necessary, could work. For that matter if you are rich enough you do not need to invest at all, and then would never pay any tax until you die!