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Income Taxes
6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2018
Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]  
Income Taxes
Note 7 – Income Taxes
The Tax Act was enacted in December 2017. The Tax Act significantly changed U.S. tax law by, among other things, lowering U.S. corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, implementing a territorial tax system, and imposing a one-time transition tax on deemed repatriation of cumulative earnings of foreign subsidiaries. The SEC staff issued Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 118 (“SAB 118”), which was subsequently codified in March 2018, to address the application of U.S. GAAP in situations when a registrant does not have the necessary information available, prepared, or analyzed (including computations) in reasonable detail to complete the accounting for certain income tax effects of the Tax Act and allows the registrant to record provisional amounts during a measurement period not to extend beyond one year of the enactment date. In the prior year, we recognized a net tax benefit of $14 million for the provisional tax effects related to the one-time transition tax and the revaluation of deferred tax balances and included these estimates in our consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2017. We are still in the process of analyzing the effect of the various provisions of the Tax Act. The ultimate effect may materially differ from these provisional amounts due to, among other things, additional analysis, changes in interpretations and assumptions we have made, additional regulatory guidance that may be issued, and actions we may take as a result of the Tax Act. We expect to complete our analysis within the measurement period in accordance with SAB 118.
While the Tax Act provides for a modified territorial tax system, beginning in 2018, global intangible low-taxed income (“GILTI”) provisions will be applied imposing an incremental tax on low-taxed foreign income. The GILTI provisions require us to include in our U.S. income tax return foreign subsidiary earnings in excess of an allowable return on the foreign subsidiary’s tangible assets. Under U.S. GAAP, we are required to make an accounting policy election to either (1) treat taxes due related to GILTI as a current-period expense when incurred (the “period cost method”) or (2) factor such amounts into our measurement of our deferred taxes (the “deferred method”). We are continuing to evaluate the GILTI tax rules and have not yet adopted our policy to account for the related impacts. The Tax Act also provides for foreign derived intangible income (“FDII”) to be taxed at a lower effective rate than the U.S. statutory rate by allowing a tax deduction against the income.
We determine our provision for income taxes for interim periods using an estimate of our annual effective tax rate. We record any changes affecting the estimated annual effective tax rate in the interim period in which the change occurs, including discrete tax items. We have included in the estimated annual effective tax the reduction in the U.S. statutory tax rate, GILTI, and the FDII deduction related to current year operations and have not provided additional GILTI on deferred items.
For the three months ended June 30, 2018, the effective tax rate was a 33.8% benefit on a pre-tax loss, compared to a 5.3% expense on pre-tax income for the three months ended June 30, 2017 with the change primarily driven by the above Tax Act changes, the 2018 goodwill impairment as discussed in Note 3 – Fair Value Measurements, a decrease in excess tax benefits for stock compensation as well as other discrete tax items.
For the six months ended June 30, 2018, the effective tax rate was a 13.7% benefit on a pre-tax loss, compared to a 58.6% benefit on a pre-tax loss for the six months ended June 30, 2017 with the change primarily driven by the Tax Act, the 2018 goodwill impairment, a decrease in excess tax benefits for stock compensation as well as other discrete tax items.
We are subject to taxation in the United States and various other state and foreign jurisdictions. We are under examination by the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") for our 2009 through 2013 tax years. Subsequent years remain open to examination by the IRS. We do not anticipate a significant impact to our gross unrecognized tax benefits within the next 12 months related to these years. During first quarter of 2017, the IRS issued proposed adjustments related to transfer pricing with our foreign subsidiaries for our 2009 to 2010 audit cycle. The proposed adjustments would increase our U.S. taxable income by $105 million, which would result in federal tax expense of approximately $37 million, subject to interest. We do not agree with the proposed adjustments and are formally protesting the IRS position.