Note 13 - Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2016

Notes to Financial Statements

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

1 3 . Income Taxes

At the end of each interim period, we are required to estimate our annual effective tax rate for the fiscal year and use that rate to provide for income taxes for the current year-to-date reporting period. Our overall effective income tax rates were 33.0% and 36.8% for the three months ended March 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, resulting in income tax expense of $4.7 million and $4.9 million for the same periods, respectively. The year-over-year improvement in our effective tax rate is primarily the result of our estimated 2016 full year effective tax rate (1) including estimated energy credits versus no such estimate as of March 31, 2015 as the credit for both 2015 and 2016 was not approved by the U.S. Congress until December of 2015 and (2) including a domestic manufacturing deduction whereas we were not eligible for this deduction in the prior year due to net operating loss carryforwards.

At March 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015 we had deferred tax assets, net of valuation allowances and deferred tax liabilities, of $95.9 million and $99.1 million, respectively. The valuation allowances were related to (1) various state net operating loss carryforwards where realization is more uncertain at this time due to the limited carryforward periods that exist in certain states and (2) the portion of the amount by which the carrying value of our Metro Bonds for tax purposes exceeds our carrying value for book purposes, as we believe realization of that portion is more uncertain at this time.