I recall some companies used to pay stock dividends way back in the 90s though I am not sure what the tax treatment of such dividends is.

The was an oil&gas company that had two classes of stock, which I owned until they merged them.
One class paid $X.XX dividend in cash.
The other paid the $X.XX in worth of stock. That was non taxable.
I believe getting stock is legally treated as a small split. Which is not a taxable event.

Funny thing was, the second class was generally 10% lower price than the cash-paying first class.
So if you owned the 2nd class you could immediately sell the shares you just received and net more cash than what was paid out to the 1st class. (Actually, you would sell old shares to get the LTGC tax rate.)

The vast majority of shareholders own the 1st class.

Demonstrating the illogic of dividend-seeking investors. They preferred to get cash in hand instead of stock that was worth 10% more than the cash, which could be immediately sold and received 10% more cash.

It wasn't even funny, it was that way for YEARS. The company always complained that the 2 classes should not have any difference in price. They eventually merged them together, thus depriving us smart people of free money.