Just one point of contention. I don't think companies pay 30% of dividends to the ATO, but rather, the company pays tax which is then passed onto the shareholders. Let's use an example - if a company makes $100 profit, it will pay corporate tax of $30 (note that companies and associated entities with aggregate turnover less than 50mn has tax rate of 25%). $30 is recorded on the balance sheet as tax/paid or franking credits while the $70 is recorded as NPAT on the P&L. The company can either keep that $70 and roll it into the balance sheet as retained profit, or pay out a dividend, in part of in full, to its shareholders. When those dividends are paid out with the profit that has been taxed, the tax paid by the company is also credited to the shareholder in the form of a franking credit. This was done to avoid double taxation over the same money. This is commonly known as fully-franked dividends.
A company with a lot of earnings in foreign tax jurisdiction will pay tax there but not here (though it can claim some form of foreign tax credits in its final assessable tax bill). Because no corporate tax has been paid to the ATO for those foreign earnings, no franking credits can be passed onto the shareholders. This is known as unfranked dividends.
Of course, there are some companies with mixed earnings (such as WOR, BHP, CSL, etc) where some of their earnings are in Australia with taxes paid to ATO while other earnings are in foreign jurisdictions. In those cases, the company would typically issue a partially-franked dividends with a certain percentage being franked (eg. 30% franked).
Hope that makes sense
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STX Price at posting:
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