Personally, all my dividends are qualified dividends, and thus are taxed at the long term capital gains rate. I think the tax efficiency is more about avoiding

Personally, all my dividends are qualified dividends, and thus are taxed at the long term capital gains rate. I think the tax efficiency is more about avoiding the immediate taxation on a reinvested dividend vs. no taxable event when I don’t sell into a stock buyback. If you model this as one event, with the same terminal state (sell all stock), the tax rates are the same. But if you model it as many capital return events, and in the end I make one sale of all my stock, the government gets less money. The government gets even less money if my heirs get a step-up in basis when I die (which they generally do).