BRK.B shares currently trade around US$160ish/share. The dividend equivalent to selling even a single share would incur $24 in taxes (15%), and the transaction fee for a discount broker is around $7 or $8. So unless the shares have tripled since you bought them, which would have had to have been in 2003 or prior, you're coming out ahead in the US after only one share (savings on long-term capital gains taxes exceed the transaction fee cost). If you sell two shares at a time, it gets you back to 1997.
Yes, tax-advantaged accounts are a different question, but Berkshire can't pay a dividend to just "the people who need money in a tax-advantaged account". If you want a smaller impact from fees, make fewer, larger transactions.
It's not like this requires particularly large sums. At 7 shares per transaction you're already under the industry average stock index fund expense ratio (0.76%), and unlike those funds, that's a cost that's incurred once on just the shares you sell, not annually on your whole investment. People pay higher (relative) fees to withdraw cash from an ATM.
> US$160ish/share. The dividend equivalent to selling even a single share would incur $24 in taxes (15%),
You aren't taking the purchase price of that share into consideration. If you bought the share at $140, your profit is only $20, and the tax on the equivalent dividend would only be $3.
Yes, tax-advantaged accounts are a different question, but Berkshire can't pay a dividend to just "the people who need money in a tax-advantaged account". If you want a smaller impact from fees, make fewer, larger transactions.
It's not like this requires particularly large sums. At 7 shares per transaction you're already under the industry average stock index fund expense ratio (0.76%), and unlike those funds, that's a cost that's incurred once on just the shares you sell, not annually on your whole investment. People pay higher (relative) fees to withdraw cash from an ATM.