I think you know by now how I feel about pollies: they're lower than sharks' dung, although once in a while they actually come up with some useful legislation, such as when the former Prime Minister Paul Keating created Australia's dividend taxation regime in 1987.
Under his regime - which created a nation of shareholders - , franking credits (i.e. the company tax paid on dividends paid to shareholders) could be used by them as a credit against their own tax obligation.
But it was former treasurer Peter Costello who in 2000 went one better by allowing shareholders to get a cash refund if they receive more in franking credit than they actually owe in tax. Retirees, whose super-annuation is altogether tax-free, get a refund of 30 cents for every 70 cents they receive in 'fully-franked' dividends.
This 'dividend imputation' exists in only four countries, Australia, Chile, Malta and New Zealand. Canada, Korea and the United Kingdom have a partial imputation system. Germany had a dividend imputation system until 2000 and France until 2004 (while other jurisdictions such as Singapore achieve a similar result by not taxing dividends at all).
Not everyone knows about dividend imputation. My dermatologist didn't. He inspected my back with a magnifying glass after which he declared my sun spots and previous melanomas as 'just fine'. He then charged me a hundred and eighty dollars for a four-and-a-half-minute consultation! Maybe I should've charged him for my advice on dividend imputation.
