Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2019

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Taxes

8. Income Taxes

For the three months ended June 30, 2019 and 2018, we recorded $62.4 million and $58.7 million of income tax expense and had an effective tax rate of 24.4% and 23.9%, respectively. For the six months ended June 30, 2019 and 2018, we recorded $124.9 million and $105.1 million of income tax expense and had an effective tax rate of 24.7% and 24.3%, respectively. The increase in our effective tax rate for both the three and six months ended June 30, 2019 compared with the same period in 2018 was due to higher state and local income taxes net of the federal benefit and higher employee compensation related impacts from restricted stock vests with a lower excess tax benefit (ASU 2016-09) and from the elimination of the performance based exclusion in tax reform.

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 six months ended June 30, 2019 and 2018, cash paid for taxes, net of refunds received, was $92.1 million and $22.2 million, respectively. The increase in cash tax payments between the periods is primarily due to the 2018 use of a federal overpayment carryforward from the 2017 tax year resulting from tax reform related changes.

During the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, there were no significant changes to our uncertain tax positions. For more information, see Note 7, Income Taxes, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in “Part II, Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of our 2018 Annual Report on Form 10-K.