Note 10 - Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2017

Notes to Financial Statements

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

10 .  Income Taxes

For the

three

-month and

six

-month periods ended

June 30, 2017

and

2016,

our income tax expense and effective income tax rates were as follows (dollars in thousands):

	Three Months Ended						Six Months Ended
	June 30,						June 30,
	2017			2016			2017			2016
Income tax expense	$	47,893		$	11,897		$	55,222		$	18,312
Effective income tax rate		40.4	%		40.2	%		40.5	%		40.7	%

We estimate our differences between taxable income or loss and recorded income or loss on an annual basis. Our tax provision for each quarter is based upon these full year projections, which are revised each reporting period. These projections incorporate estimates of permanent differences between U.S. GAAP income or loss and taxable income or loss, state income taxes and adjustments to our liability for unrecognized tax benefits to adjust our statutory Federal income tax rate of

35.0%

to our effective income tax rate. For the

six

-month period ended

June 30, 2017,

these estimates

increased or decreased our statutory Federal income tax rate of

35.0%

to our effective income tax rate of

40.5%

as follows: state income taxes added

4.3%,

permanent differences between our U.S. GAAP income and taxable income added

1.3%,

and a discrete share-based compensation adjustment resulted in a reduction

0.1%.

For the

six

-month period ended

June 30, 2016,

these estimates increased or decreased our statutory Federal income tax rate of

35.0%

to our effective income tax rate of

40.7%

as follows: state income taxes added

4.4%

and permanent differences between our U.S. GAAP income and taxable income added

1.2%,

and discrete share-based compensation adjustments added

0.5%,

while adjustments to our reserve for uncertain tax positions resulted in a reduction of

0.4%.