Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Taxes

Income Taxes    

The six month effective tax rate was 46.9% as compared to 50.1% for the prior year comparative period. The current year provision included the estimated impact of disallowed transaction costs related to the Battery Acquisition and the Auto Care Acquisition for which the Company does not believe that there will be an income tax benefit. Both years' provision included the impact of the U.S. tax legislation discussed below.

On December 22, 2017, H.R. 1, formally known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Tax Act) was enacted into law. The Tax Act provided for numerous significant tax law changes and modifications with varying effective dates, which included reducing the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, creating a territorial tax system (with a mandatory transition tax on previously deferred foreign earnings) and allowing for immediate capital expensing of certain qualified property. As a fiscal year end taxpayer, certain provisions of the Tax Act began to impact us in the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2017, while other provisions did not impact us until fiscal 2019. The corporate tax rate reduction was effective for Energizer as of January 1, 2018 and resulted in a fiscal year federal statutory blended rate of 24.5% for fiscal year 2018 with the full impact of the reduced rate to 21% beginning in fiscal year 2019.

As a result of the reduction of the Federal corporate income tax rate, the Company remeasured certain deferred tax assets and liabilities at the rate which they are expected to reverse in the future. The Company has finalized the remeasurement and did not have any adjustments to the $3.0 recorded in fiscal year 2018. The provision for the six months ended March 31, 2018, included approximately $1.

The mandatory transition tax is based on our total post-1986 earnings and profits (E&P) that we previously deferred from U.S. income taxes as well as the amount of non-U.S. income tax paid on such earnings. We have completed our accounting for the income tax effect of the mandatory transition tax in the first quarter of fiscal 2019. We recorded an additional $1.5 during the quarter ended December 31, 2018 related to the anticipated state tax impact for a total tax of $37.5. Included in the provision for the six months ended March 31, 2018 was an initial estimate of $30.0 related to the transition tax.

The Tax Act created a provision known as Global Intangible Low Taxed Income (GILTI) that imposes tax on certain earnings of foreign subsidiaries. The Company has elected to treat GILTI as a current period expense.