Originally Posted by
bobblehead
To make it more complicated some BDCs pay ordinary dividends and others pay qualified dividends. To my knowledge none of the ones worth owning return capital. MLPs "return capital" and book your profits so you pay less until you have recouped 100% of the initial investment. I'm actually not sure which MSDL pays yet because they just went public. OBDC pays qualified which is nice where as ARCC pays non qualified (ordinary) so I keep it in my IRA. MAIN pay ordinary as well, but it has become overpriced (as has OBDC). ARCC and MSDL are very worth buying though.
Edit: Also BDCs don't require anything special, but MLPs mostly (all?) issue a K-1.