Aug 14 (Reuters) - Australia's Origin Energy ORG.AX reported a 26% rise in its full-year underlying profit on Thursday, helped by lower income tax expense as dividends from Australia Pacific LNG switched from partially to fully franked.

The country's second-largest power producer posted underlying profit of A$1.49 billion ($974.76 million) for the twelve months ended June 30, beating Visible Alpha's consensus estimate of A$1.46 billion.

Origin's annual profit came in at A$1.18 billion a year ago.

($1 = 1.5286 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Sneha Kumar and Nikita Maria Jino in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)

((Sneha.Kumar@thomsonreuters.com;))