In response to the COVID‑19 pandemic, the CARES Act was signed into law in March 2020. The CARES Act lifts certain deduction limitations originally imposed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “2017 Tax Act”). Corporate taxpayers may carryback net operating losses (“NOLs”) originating in 2018 through 2020 for up to five years, which was not previously allowed under the 2017 Tax Act. The CARES Act also eliminates the existing limitation on taxable income of 80% by allowing corporate entities to fully utilize NOL carryforwards to offset taxable income in 2018, 2019, or 2020. Taxpayers may generally deduct interest up to the sum of 50% of adjusted taxable income, plus business interest income, subject to the existing 30% limit under the 2017 Tax Act, for 2019 and 2020. The CARES Act allows taxpayers with alternative minimum tax credits to claim a refund in 2020 for the entire amount of the credits instead of recovering the credits through refunds over a period of years, as originally enacted by the 2017 Tax Act.

In addition, the CARES Act raises the corporate charitable deduction limit to 25% of taxable income and makes qualified improvement property generally eligible for 15‑year cost-recovery and 100% bonus depreciation.

With the enactment of the CARES Act, we expect to generate an additional income tax refund of approximately $0.7 million from our NOL carryback provision, resulting from the benefit from additional interest and depreciation deductions. Accordingly, we recognized a benefit of $0.2 million related to the CARES Act in our income tax provision for the first quarter of 2020.

	Three Months Ended
	March 27, 2020			March 29, 2019
Income tax benefit	$	(242	)	$	(1,373	)
Income before income taxes	$	3,157		$	145
Effective income tax rate		-7.7	%		-946.9	%

Our effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2020 differs from the statutory rate due to taxes on foreign income that differ from the U.S. tax rate and the release of the certain tax reserves related to statute of limitation expirations and settlements, excess tax benefits from share-based compensation and the impact of the CARES Act.

Our effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2019 differs from the statutory rate due to taxes on foreign income that differ from the U.S. tax rate, the release of certain tax reserves related to statute of limitation expirations and settlements, and excess tax benefits from share-based compensation.

The ending balance for the unrecognized tax benefits for uncertain tax positions was approximately $2.1 million at March 27, 2020. The related interest and penalties were zero and $0.4 million, respectively. The uncertain tax positions that are reasonably possible to decrease in the next twelve months are insignificant.