Hey MMMers, remedial question here:
(3) under current tax rules in USA you can pull US$90k /yr from long term capital gains and dividends and pay ZERO federal tax.
That's usually not the case, certainly not for a single person (I assume "Miss" implies single.) For a single person, the 0% capital gains bracket is $0-38,600
If you had no other taxable income, you could add a $12,000 additional gains due to the standard deduction.
So, then you're up to $50600 of long term capital gains that you would pay 0% federal tax on, but ONLY if you had no other taxable income. So $90K in capital gains would trigger taxes at the federal level.
Myself, I have to pay 15% on all my long term capital gains because I earn over $100K/yr of other income, well above the 0% capital gains tax level.
Of course, normally when selling shares that realize capital gains as opposed to dividends, the gain is only part of the amount you are pulling from the investment. So a $30K gain, for example, from selling shares will mean you're actually pulling much more from your investment than $30K.