Note 17 - Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Sep. 27, 2015

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

NOTE 17. INCOME TAXES

During the three months and six months ended September 27, 2015, we recorded an income tax benefit of approximately $1.1 million and $1.0 million, respectively. The income tax benefit was primarily due to the lapsing of the statute of limitations related to the U.S. federal tax reserves. During the three months and six months ended September 28, 2014, we recorded an income tax expense of approximately $0.1 million and $0.8 million, respectively. The expense is primarily related to the allocation of tax expense between continuing operations and other comprehensive income when applying the exception to the ASC 740 intraperiod allocation rule upon liquidation of our available for sale security portfolio in fiscal year 2015.

During the three months ended September 27, 2015, the unrecognized tax benefits decreased by $1.1 million to $16.6 million primarily related to the lapsing of the statute of limitations, offset by the increase of unrecognized tax benefit on R&D tax credits. If recognized, $13.6 million of these unrecognized tax benefits (net of federal benefit) would be recorded as a reduction of future income tax provision before consideration of changes in valuation allowance.

Estimated interest and penalties related to the income taxes are classified as a component of the provision for income taxes in the condensed consolidated statement of operations. Accrued interest and penalties consisted of the following as of the dates indicated (in thousands):

	September 27, 2015		March 29, 2015
Accrued interest and penalties	$	1,228	$	1,187

Our major tax jurisdictions are the United States federal and various states, Canada, China, Hong Kong and certain other foreign jurisdictions. The fiscal years 2003 through 2014 remain open and subject to examinations by the appropriate governmental agencies in the United States and over varying periods in certain of our foreign jurisdictions.