You can find the income and earnings from the company's balance sheet and income statement.
The balance sheet shows the company’s assets and liabilities. It also reveals the company’s retained earnings — the total company earnings that haven't been returned to its shareholders through dividends.
The income statement shows the company’s annual net earnings. It also shows how much the company has earned during a given year if they had decided not to pay any dividends.
When calculating the dividend for a given year, subtract the retained earnings at the start of the year from the year-end figure. What's left is the net change in retained earnings for that year.
So let's say a company starts the year with $10M in retained earnings, and $30M at the end. It also earns $50M in net profits for the year.
Using the formula above, here's the math:
Step 1: $30M - $10M = $20M retained earnings
Step 2: $50M annual income - $20M retained earnings = $30M paid in dividends.
Investors can take this one step further and divide the $30M by the total number of outstanding shares, also found on the balance sheet, to calculate the dividends per share.
Other ways to find a company’s total dividends include calculating the company’s dividend yield and dividend payout ratio.
