Franking

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Franking is also the passing-on of franking credits to shareholders in countries that have dividend imputation to reduce or eliminate double taxation of company profits.

For the village in Austria, see Franking, Austria.

An example of a franked mailing

Franking in general is the marking of mail relating to postage by a company or government. It can offer the privileges of free or reduced cost postage, or simply the convience of sending large amounts of mail without the need to visit a postoffice, or have large amounts of stamps on the premesis.

Private mail

Businesses often frank mail with a franking machine, allowing them to print a logo, advertising message, or return address in the area in which a stamp would normally be placed. Such machines contains a specified amount of prepaid postage, which is reduced as each item is marked for posting.

In April 2005 the Royal Mail in the United Kingdom introduced discounts to businesses using mail franking, in compensation for the reduced cost to the company of processing these mailings. [link]

Franking privilege

Franking within a political context is generally seen as the privilege to send mail for free, typically granted to certain elected officials by the government. An authorized person exercises the franking privilege by causing his or her signature or a facsimile thereof to be added to the upper right corner of a letter or parcel in lieu of a postage stamp.

A limited form of franking originated in the British Parliament in 1660, with the passage of an act authorizing the formation of the General Post Office. In the United States, franking predates the establishment of the republic itself (the Continental Congress bestowed the privilege on its members in 1775), and the First United States Congress enacted a franking law in 1789 during its very first session. In the 19th century, as use of the post office exploded in Britain, it was expected that anybody with a Parliament connection would get his friends' mail franked. Today, the U.S. President and members of the Senate and House of Representatives as well as certain congressional officials such as the Superintendent of Documents are allowed to send franked mail to their constituents, as are the Governor General of Canada and members of the Canadian Senate and House of Commons. In Canada, citizens and residents may also send mail to senators and members of the Parliament of Canada at Parliament Hill postage-free.

Common uses of the franking privileges include replies to letters sent by constituents, and so-called "constituent mailings," brief newsletters intended to keep citizens apprised of goings-on in the legislative body to which the member belongs.

In theory, elected officials and the postal service are both paid for by the taxpayer. The postal service represents a fixed cost - that is, adding the official's mail to the existing mailstream does not change the postal system's total costs. The franking privilege allows elected officials to send official mail without creating accounting transactions that, at the total government level, will cancel each other out. In practice, the franking privilege is applied to more than just the official mail necessary for the conduct of the office. Franking is one of the largest advantages of incumbency, contributing to a very high reelection rate in the U.S. legislative branch.

In countries where franking is practiced, the privilege has long been considered an important tool for keeping elected officials in touch with their constituents, but its use is also frequently criticized as a way for officials to campaign for reelection and otherwise glorify themselves at the expense of the taxpayer. Officials are usually not given a blanket right to send mail for free, but instead are subject to oversight and regulation and sometimes must comply with budgetary restrictions and disclosure requirements. The entity responsible for such oversight and regulation in the U.S. House of Representatives is the Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards, colloquially known as the Franking Commission.

External links

• [Overview of the U.S. congressional frank and its history]
• [Canadian Parliament contact information]
• [Description of franked mail in the United Kingdom]

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