After sailing past guesses last week on what it would earn in its second fiscal quarter, Guess? hiked its quarterly common dividend 25%. The clothing and accessories retailer (ticker: GES) initiated payouts at six cents a share in February 2007, then sweetened them to eight cents last September and to a dime a share Wednesday. Investors of record Sept. 17 will receive the new payout Oct. 3, and the stock goes ex-dividend Sept. 15. Yield: 1.03%. Guess? repurchased 951,000 of its shares in the quarter ended July 31. Recently quoted at 39 on the Big Board, the stock's 52-week high and low are 57.20 and 29.66.

The pending merger of Chicago-based Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (MDRX) with Raleigh, N.C.-based Misys Healthcare Systems, a unit of London's Misys, is expected to create a market leader in the U.S. electronic-health-records market, forecast to be worth at least $5 billion by 2015. Along with the stock of its subsidiary, Misys will pay $330 million for a 54.5% controlling stake in the new entity. Allscripts, in turn, will pass along that cash to its investors via a special dividend worth $4.84 to $5.68 a share, depending on how many of its option and convertible-debenture holders exercise and convert their rights. Investors meet Sept. 22. According to Robert Willens, whose Web-based Willens Report surveys the latest developments in taxation and accounting, Allscripts expects the distribution to substantially exceed its earnings and profits, or E&P, a tax-related calculation. Thus, a big chunk of it is likely to be treated as a nontaxable return of capital rather than a dividend. Therein lies the problem. At the time Allscripts files its information returns with the Internal Revenue Service, no later than Jan. 31, 2009, it will not have totted up its 2008 E&P. Willens says it will therefore have to initially report the entire shareholder distribution as a dividend. Once E&P are determined, which Allscripts has said will not be until Sept. 15, 2009, stockholders will have to amend their 2008 tax returns to get back the taxes they paid on the dividend. Willens believes that "a lot of shareholders, when apprised of these record-keeping headaches, will choose to sell their stock prior to the record date for the distribution." In that event, he points out, "there may be inordinate selling pressure prior to the record date, with the result that tax-indifferent investors, such as pension funds and mutual funds, may be in a position to scoop up Allscripts stock at bargain prices." Willens finds that an interesting example of how the compliance costs associated with accurately reporting a special distribution may lead to "market opportunities for those investors who are not concerned with taxes."