7.	Income Taxes

On December 22, 2017, the President signed into law H.R.1 (P.L. 115-97), originally known as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (the “Tax Act”). The Tax Act significantly revises the U.S. tax code by, among other items, reducing the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, providing for the full expensing of certain depreciable property, eliminating the corporate alternative minimum tax, limiting the deductibility of interest expense, further limiting the deductibility of certain executive compensation, limiting the use of net operating loss carryforwards created in tax years beginning after December 31, 2017, and implementing a territorial tax system imposing a deemed repatriation transition tax (“Transition Tax”) on earnings of foreign subsidiaries.

The SEC staff issued Staff Accounting Bulletin (“SAB”) 118, Income Tax Accounting Implications of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which provides guidance on accounting for the effects and includes a measurement period that ends when a company has obtained, prepared, and analyzed the information necessary to finalize its accounting of the Tax Act, which cannot extend beyond one year. In accordance with SAB 118, the Company recorded provisional estimates of the income tax effects of the Tax Act in our 2017 Form 10-K.

During the three months ended March 31, 2018, we have not recorded any measurement period adjustments to the provisional estimates recorded at December 31, 2017. Final accounting for the income tax effects of the Tax Act will occur after the completion of our 2017 federal and state income tax returns in the fourth quarter of 2018.

For the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, we recorded $46.5 million and $61.7 million of income tax expense and had an effective tax rate of 24.9% and 34.5%, respectively. The decrease in our effective tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2018 compared with the same period in 2017, was primarily due to federal tax reform (P.L. 115-97), which included a reduction in the federal tax rate of 14.0% offset by the loss of the Domestic Production Activities Deduction benefit of about 3.2% and a reduction in the federal benefit of state tax deductions of about 0.8%.

Our effective tax rate may differ from the federal statutory income tax rate of 21.0%, due primarily to the effect of state and local income taxes. During the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, cash paid for taxes, net of refunds received, was $10.3 million and $9.7 million, respectively.

During the three months ended March 31, 2018 there were no significant changes to our uncertain tax positions. For more information, see Note 6, Income Taxes, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in “Part II, Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of our 2017 Annual Report on Form 10-K.