10. Income Taxes

For the three and six months ended June 30, 2018 and 2017, interim income tax benefits were recorded by applying a projected full-year effective income tax rate to the quarterly Loss before income taxes for results that are deemed to be reliably estimable. For 2017, certain items are considered not to be reliably estimable, and therefore, discrete year-to-date income tax provisions are recorded on those items.

The Company conducts periodic evaluations of positive and negative evidence to determine whether it is more likely than not that the deferred tax asset can be realized in future periods. In these evaluations, the Company gives more significant weight to objective evidence, such as actual financial condition and historical results of operations, as compared to subjective evidence, such as projections of future taxable income or loss.

For the three-year periods ended December 31, 2017, the Company is in a material cumulative pre-tax loss position. The Company expects to maintain a full valuation allowance on our deferred tax assets until there is sufficient evidence to support the reversal of all, or some portion of, those allowances. As a result of these evaluations, the effective tax rate was not significant for the three and six months ended June 30, 2018 and the Company has recognized a full valuation allowance of $87 million for the deferred tax assets at June 30, 2018.

The effective tax rates for the three and six months ended June 30, 2017 were (44.3)% and (37.5)% on pre-tax losses from continuing operations of $75 million and $152 million, respectively.