Note 11 - Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2025

Notes to Financial Statements

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

11. Income Taxes

For the three-months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024, our income tax (benefit) expense and effective income tax rates were as follows (dollars in millions):

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2025			2024
Income tax (benefit) expense	$	(15	)	$	31
Effective income tax rate		63	%		26	%

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 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 21% to our effective income tax rate. For the three-months ended March 31, 2025, these estimates increased our statutory Federal income tax rate to our effective income tax rate of 63% as follows: state income taxes that added 15%; permanent differences added 39%; restricted stock differences resulted in a decrease of 12%. For the three-months ended March 31, 2024, these estimates increased our statutory Federal income tax rate to our effective income tax rate of 26% as follows: state income taxes that added 4%; permanent differences added 1%; restricted stock differences resulted in an increase of 2% and changes in our reserves for uncertain tax positions resulted in a decrease of 2%.

During the first quarter of 2025, we made no material federal or state income tax payments. During the remainder of 2025, we anticipate making income tax payments within a range of $48 million to $68 million. As of March 31, 2025, we have an aggregate of approximately $252 million of various state operating loss carryforwards, of which we expect that approximately $173 million will not be utilized due to section 382 limitations and those that will expire prior to utilization. After applying our state effective tax rate, this amount is included in our valuation allowance for deferred tax assets.