NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - This year it may pay to procrastinate on your tax returns.

Brokerage firms and mutual-fund companies are having a harder time than usual telling investors how much of their dividends qualify for a lower tax rate under the new tax law approved in May, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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The change in the tax law cut the top tax rate on many dividends to 15 percent from as high as 38.6 percent, but the fact that the change doesn't apply to all dividends is causing some confusion.

That means that a larger-than-usual amount of 1099 forms sent out by money management firms, which detail securities and dividend transactions, are wrong and will need to be corrected, the paper reported.

"I won't send out any of the tax returns I prepare until at least the middle of March," David Zalles, an accountant in Lafayette Hill, Pa., told the Journal. "By then, hopefully, all the corrected 1099s will come out."

Some of the confusion comes from which securities dividends qualify for the lower tax rate. Some distributions that don't qualify include those from: preferred securities, real estate investment trusts, foreign stocks, money-market mutual funds and bond funds.

Investors must have also held a qualifying stock for at least 61 days during 2003 to receive the lower rate, the paper reported.

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The Securities Industry Association (SIA) said the tax law changes will "present an even greater challenge" for tax reporting than did the 1997 tax act that caused firms to correct about 17 percent of the statements they issued, according to the Journal.

In a typical year, about 5 to 8 percent of 1099 forms are corrected, the paper reported, citing the SIA.