Income Taxes (Tables)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2021

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Components of income tax expense (benefit)

The components of the income tax expense are as follows:

	Years Ended December 31,
	2021		2020	2019
	(Dollars in millions)
Federal
Current	$	—	—	12
Deferred	125		162	186
State and local
Current	12		22	4
Deferred	28		42	41
Foreign
Current	16		19	17
Deferred	16		(24)	(5)
Total income tax expense	$	197	221	255

Schedule of income before income tax, domestic and foreign

	Years Ended December 31,
	2021		2020	2019
	(Dollars in millions)
Income tax expense was allocated as follows:
Income tax expense in the consolidated statements of operations:
Attributable to income	$	197	221	255
Member's equity:
Tax effect of the change in accumulated other comprehensive loss	$	(30)	43	5

Schedule of effective income tax rate reconciliation

The following is a reconciliation from the statutory federal income tax rate to our effective income tax rate:

	Years Ended December 31,
	2021		2020		2019
	(Percentage of pre-tax income)
Statutory federal income tax rate	21.0	%	21.0	%	21.0	%
State income taxes, net of federal income tax benefit	4.1	%	5.8	%	(1.2)	%
Goodwill impairment	—	%	—	%	(26.4)	%
Tax law changes	—	%	(1.5)	%	(0.2)	%
Global intangible low-taxed income	—	%	—	%	(0.4)	%
Net foreign income tax	1.6	%	0.9	%	(0.8)	%
Executive compensation limitation	—	%	—	%	(0.2)	%
Research and development credits	(0.4)	%	(0.6)	%	0.1	%
Other, net	(1.1)	%	(0.3)	%	(0.5)	%
Effective income tax rate	25.2	%	25.3	%	(8.6)	%

Deferred tax assets and liabilities

The tax effects of temporary differences that gave rise to significant portions of the deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities were as follows:

	As of December 31,
	2021		2020
	(Dollars in millions)
Deferred tax assets
Deferred revenue	$	306	277
Net operating loss carry forwards	3,191		3,503
Property, plant and equipment	71		65
Other	267		343
Gross deferred tax assets	3,835		4,188
Less valuation allowance	(1,103)		(1,170)
Net deferred tax assets	2,732		3,018
Deferred tax liabilities
Deferred revenue	(14)		(34)
Property, plant and equipment	(1,295)		(1,264)
Intangible assets	(1,539)		(1,773)
Other	(20)		(33)
Gross deferred tax liabilities	(2,868)		(3,104)
Net deferred tax liabilities	$	(136)	(86)

Schedule of unrecognized tax benefits

A reconciliation of the change in our gross unrecognized tax benefits (excluding both interest and any related federal benefit) from January 1 to December 31 for 2021 and 2020 is as follows:

	2021		2020
	(Dollars in millions)
Unrecognized tax benefits at beginning of period	$	923	952
Tax positions of prior periods netted against deferred tax assets	(49)		(32)
Increase in tax positions taken in the prior period	—		—
Increase in tax positions taken in the current period	4		4
Decrease due to settlement/payments	(2)		(1)
Decrease from the lapse of statute of limitations	—		—
Unrecognized tax benefits at end of period	$	876	923