Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) may have slid lower on Wednesday’s headlines that the company could owe millions of dollars in back taxes. While that is not good, it may be noise, because it is 20 million to 30 million euro, per reports. 24/7 Wall St. recently featured Starbucks as one of nine companies that can raise their dividends for the next decade.

Again, Wednesday’s news is probably noise in the grand scheme of things. Starbucks has a $90 billion market cap. Its 2014 global revenue was $16.5 billion, and it generated $3.1 billion in operating income and almost $2.1 billion in net income. Here is more detail on why Starbucks has a dividend that is not just safe, but why it can grow that dividend for the next decade.

Starbucks is still considered a growth company. Its dividend history dates back only to 2010, and that initial five cent dividend has now risen to $0.16 and is due to be hiked again soon. The current $0.64 annualized dividend payment compares to operating earnings of $1.33 per share a year ago. It also compares to a 2015 expected $1.59 per share, as well as $1.88 per share for 2016.

Many investors may feel that a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 38 is keeping a lid on how high its dividend can be. What those investors have to consider is double-digit revenue and earnings growth. Starbucks also has been very selective in how it handles mergers and acquisitions, despite having a serious global growth story ahead.

The coffee retail giant has a dividend yield of only about 1% today, but its 40% payout ratio has room to grow on its own, and with the expected earnings growth ahead.

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Note that investors should not expect massive dividend hikes. As that P/E ratio contracts, assuming it does, then the dividend can move higher. Ask yourself this: who doesn’t expect Starbucks to keep growing here and abroad?

As a reminder, here are a handful of Starbucks’ own long-term targets, issued by the company itself at the end of 2014:

• for revenues to approach $30 billion in Fiscal Year 2019 versus $16 billion in Fiscal Year 2014 … grow its revenue by 60%, nearly double its operating income, and more than double its ready-to-drink (RTD) business outside of the U.S.
• identifying high-value opportunities in China (doubling to 3,000 stores there), India, Japan and Brazil;
• and reinventing the $109 billion global tea category.

Shares of Starbucks were last seen trading right at $60.60, with a consensus analyst price target of $64.13. That analyst target keeps ratcheting higher as well. The stock has a 52-week trading range of $36.71 to $60.89.

A final reminder: a realized dividend yield is based on each investor’s own cost-basis rather than on the share price change each day. Those investors who bought Starbucks shares when it started paying a dividend back in 2010 got to buy the shares at a split-adjusted price of under $12.00. Those investors are up 400% now — and their dividend yield has now risen to 5%.

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