Note 12: Income Taxes

On December 22, 2017, the U.S. Government enacted comprehensive tax legislation commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”). The Tax Act amends the Internal Revenue Code to reduce tax rates and modify policies, credits, and deductions for individuals and businesses. For businesses, the Tax Act reduces the corporate federal tax rate from a maximum of 35 percent to a flat 21 percent. The corporate tax rate reduction was effective January 1, 2018. Since the Corporation has a fiscal year end of June 30^th, the reduced corporate tax rate for its fiscal year 2018 will result in the application of a blended federal statutory tax rate of 28.06 percent, which is based on the applicable tax rates before and after the Tax Act and corresponding number of days in the fiscal year before and after enactment, and then a flat 21 percent tax rate thereafter.

Under generally accepted accounting principles, the Corporation uses the asset and liability method of accounting for income taxes. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the future tax consequences attributable to differences between the financial statement carrying amounts of existing assets and liabilities and their respective tax bases. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are measured using enacted tax rates expected to apply to taxable income in the years in which those temporary differences are expected to be recovered or settled. At June 30, 2017, the Corporation’s deferred tax assets and liabilities were determined based on the then-current enacted federal tax rate of 35 percent. As a result of the reduction in the corporate income tax rate under the Tax Act, the Corporation revalued its deferred tax assets and liabilities at December 31, 2017. Deferred tax assets and liabilities expected to be realized in fiscal year 2018 were re-measured using the aforementioned blended rate. All remaining deferred tax assets and liabilities were re-measured using the new statutory federal rate of 21 percent. These re-measurements collectively resulted in a discrete tax expense of $1.8 million that was recognized during the quarter ended December 31, 2017. The Corporation’s revaluation of its deferred tax assets and liabilities is subject to further clarification of the Tax Act and refinements of its estimates. As a result, the actual impact on the deferred tax assets and liabilities and income tax expense due to the Tax Act may vary from the amounts estimated.

The estimated combined federal and state statutory tax rates, before discrete items, for the remainder of fiscal 2018 and for fiscal 2019 are as follows:



Statutory Tax Rates	Q3FY2018	Q4FY2018	FY2019
Federal Tax Rate	28.06%	28.06%	21.00%
State Tax Rate	10.84%	10.84%	10.84%
Combined Statutory Tax Rate⁽¹⁾	35.86%	35.86%	29.56%

⁽¹⁾ The combined statutory tax rate is net of the federal tax benefit for the state tax deduction.

The Corporation’s effective tax rate may differ from the estimated statutory tax rates described above due to discrete items such as further adjustments to net deferred tax assets, excess tax benefits derived from stock option exercises and non-taxable earnings from bank owned life insurance, among other items.