I have been working on the same problem for 4 hours.

Does anyone have Accounting experience that could help me with this?

I don't even know how to get started. The problems in the book were not helpful


Caron Corporation pays dividends at the end of each year. The dividends that it paid for 2003 was $80,000, 2004 was $60,000, and 2005 was $180,000.

Calculate the total amount of dividends the Caro Corporation paid in each of these years to its common stockholders and its preferred stock holders under the following capital structures:

1. 20,000 shares of $100 par, 6 percent noncumulative preferred stock and 60,000 shares of $10 par common stock

2. 10,000 shares of $100 par, 7 percent cumulative preferred stock and 60,000 shares of $10 par common stock. No dividends were in arrears at the beginning of 2003.

Here's another post I did about dividend distributions. You can start by reading it, use it as a kind of example and see how far you can get. Then you can post whatever you come up with and we can go from there.

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/accounting/calculating-dividends-182051.html?highlight=preferred+common+dividend

Aak, if I'm going to keep referring people to that thread, I need to include the correction. Beginning of my first post where it says 10% of the number of shares should be 10% of the total par value of the stock.