The 8c is a straight return of your capital. That is, its a...

The 8c is a straight return of your capital. That is, its a refund of part of your share purchase price. So there is no tax payable on the 8c but if you say bought the shares at 70c then for capital gains purposes in the future, your effective purchase price will now be 62c. So its not a special dividend and there is no franking credit, but there is also no tax liability. Its just a return of money they had in the bank that they don't need to run the company.

The reason they did not return it as a dividend is because they don't have a lot of franking credits. However when they produce their annual report tomorrow or Monday, there should be a franked dividend, but more like 2-3c per share

Regards

Westwind