earnings and profits
earnings and profits. Corporations. In corporate taxation, the measure of a corporation’s economic capacity to make a shareholder distribution that is not a return of capital. • The distribution will be dividend income to the shareholders to the extent of the corporation’s current and accumulated earnings and profits. Cf. accumulated-earnings tax under TAX; accumulated taxable income under INCOME. [Cases: Internal Revenue 3830.1–3845. C.J.S. Internal Revenue §§ 381–382.]