Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Taxes

6. Income Taxes

For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019, we recorded $48.4 million and $62.5 million of income tax expense and had an effective tax rate of 25.5% and 25.1%, respectively. The increase in our effective tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared with the same period in 2019 was primarily due to higher employee compensation related impacts from the elimination of the performance based compensation exclusion in tax reform and reduced benefit associated with Foreign Derived Intangible Income.

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, 2020 and 2019, cash paid for taxes, net of refunds received, was $4.7 million and $13.7 million, respectively. The decrease in cash tax payments between the periods is primarily due to lower taxable income.

During the three months ended March 31, 2020, there were no significant changes to our uncertain tax positions. For more information, see Note 8, Income Taxes, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in “Part II, Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of our 2019 Annual Report on Form 10-K.