Note 3 - Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2013

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

Note 3.   Income Taxes

Major components of our income tax provision (benefit) for the three and six months ended June 30, 2013 and 2012 are as follows (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended June 30,						Six Months Ended June 30,
	2013			2012			2012			2013
Current:
Federal	$	1,761		$	(144	)	$	3,992		$	3,528
State		(733	)		2			173			553
Foreign		115			115			230			230
Total current income tax provision (benefit)		1,143			(27	)		4,395			4,311
Deferred income tax provision (benefit)		(7,938	)		720			(3,775	)		3,697
Total income tax provision (benefit)	$	(6,795	)	$	693		$	620		$	8,008

With the acquisition of Aurizon, we added a wholly owned Canadian subsidiary . For Canadian tax purposes, the transaction was treated as an acquisition of Aurizon stock, resulting in carryover tax bases of acquired corporate assets. As a result, a net deferred tax liability was recorded for the tax impact of the excess fair market value of assets for GAAP reporting over the Canadian tax bases of those assets. We recorded an initial deferred tax liability of $177.2 million.

As of June 30, 2013 we have a net deferred tax asset in the U.S. of $115.6 million and a net deferred tax liability in Canada of $169.0 million for a consolidated worldwide net deferred tax liability of $53.4 million. Our ability to utilize our deferred tax assets depends on future taxable income generated from operations. For the six months ended June 30, 2013, there were no circumstances that caused us to change our assessment of the ability to generate future taxable income to realize our deferred tax assets.   It is possible that the valuation allowance on our deferred tax assets will change in the future as a result of the analysis of our long-range forecasts, with a resulting tax provision or benefit.

The current income tax provisions and benefits for the six months ended June 30, 2013 and 2012 vary from the amounts that would have resulted from applying the statutory income tax rate to pre-tax income primarily due to the effects of U.S. percentage depletion, non-deductible expenses, and the change in valuation allowance related to foreign operations during the six months ended June 30, 2013.