Note 10 - Income Taxes

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2017

Notes to Financial Statements

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

10

.     Income Taxes

For the

three

and

nine

-month periods ended

September 30, 2017

and

2016,

our income tax expense and effective income tax rates were

as follows (dollars in thousands)

:

	Three Months Ended						Nine Months Ended
	September 30,						September 30,
	2017			2016			2017			2016
Income tax expense	$	10,529		$	797		$	65,751		$	19,109
Effective income tax rate		40.7	%		136.5	%		40.6	%		42.0	%

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

nine

-month period ended

September 30, 2017,

these estimates

increased our statutory Federal income tax rate of

35.0%

to our effective income tax rate of

40.6%

as follows: state income taxes added

4.3%

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

1.3%.

For the

nine

-month period ended

September 30, 2016,

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

35.0%

to our effective income tax rate of

42.0%

as follows: state income taxes added

4.6%,

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

2.1%,

and discrete items added

1.0%,

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

0.7%.