Income Taxes

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Income Taxes

Income Taxes

7.        Income Taxes

The Company has elected to be taxed as a REIT under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”).  As a REIT, the Company generally is entitled to a tax deduction for distributions paid to its shareholders, thereby effectively subjecting the distributed net income of the Company to taxation at the shareholder level only.  The Company must comply with a variety of restrictions to maintain its status as a REIT.  These restrictions include the type of income it can earn, the type of assets it can hold, the number of shareholders it can have and the concentration of their ownership, and the amount of the Company’s taxable income that must be distributed annually.

One such restriction is that the Company generally cannot own more than 10% of the voting power or value of the securities of any one issuer unless the issuer is itself a REIT or a taxable REIT subsidiary (“TRS”).  In the case of TRSs, the Company’s ownership of securities in all TRSs generally cannot exceed 25% of the value of all of the Company’s assets and, when considered together with other non-real estate assets, cannot exceed 25% of the value of all of the Company’s assets.   FSP Investments and FSP Protective TRS Corp. are the Company’s taxable REIT subsidiaries operating as taxable corporations under the Code.

FSP Investments operated in the Company’s investment banking segment and in December 2011 announced it would no longer sponsor the syndication of Sponsored REITs, which were a significant amount of FSP Investments activities.  Revenues, expenses, and income tax benefits, net of valuation allowances, have been reclassified to discontinued operations for these activities.

Income taxes are recorded based on the future tax effects of the difference between the tax and financial reporting bases of the Company’s assets and liabilities.  In estimating future tax consequences, potential future events are considered except for potential changes in income tax law or in rates.

Accrued interest and penalties will be recorded as income tax expense, if the Company records a liability in the future.  The Company and one or more of its subsidiaries files income tax returns in the U.S federal jurisdiction and various state jurisdictions.  The statute of limitations for the Company’s income tax returns is generally three years and as such, the Company’s returns that remain subject to examination would be primarily from 2008 and thereafter.

In May 2006, the state of Texas enacted a new business tax (the “Revised Texas Franchise Tax”) that replaced its existing franchise tax which the Company became subject.  The Revised Texas Franchise Tax is a tax at a rate of approximately 0.7% of revenues at Texas properties commencing with 2007 revenues.  Some of the Company’s leases allow reimbursement by tenants for these amounts because the Revised Texas Franchise Tax replaces a portion of the property tax for school districts.  Because the tax base on the Revised Texas Franchise Tax is derived from an income based measure it is considered an income tax.  The Company recorded a provision in income taxes on its income statement of   $234,000 and   $182,000 for the nine months ended September 30, 2012 and 2011, respectively.

The income tax expense reflected in the consolidated statements of income relates primarily to a franchise tax on our Texas properties.  FSP Protective TRS Corp. provides taxable services to tenants at some of the Company’s properties and the tax expense associated with these activities are reported as Other Taxes in the table below:

	For the
	Nine Months Ended
	September 30,
(in thousands)	2012		2011
Revised Texas franchise tax	$	234	$	182
Other Taxes	2		3
Income tax expense	$	236	$	185

Taxes on income are a current tax expense.  No deferred income taxes were provided as there were no material temporary differences between the financial reporting basis and the tax basis of the TRSs.