Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2023

Income Taxes

Income Taxes

Note 7 – Income Taxes

Income taxes as a percentage of pre-tax income was an expense of 75.2% for the three months ended March 31, 2023 versus expense of 17.9% for the comparable period in the prior year. Our income tax expense is primarily impacted by the mix of domestic and foreign pre-tax earnings, permanent differences between book income/loss and taxable income/loss, and our ability to utilize prior net operating loss carryovers (“NOLs”). The effective tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2023 was impacted by having incurred tax expense on our foreign pre-tax income while not realizing a benefit on our domestic pre-tax loss due to the valuation allowance on our domestic NOLs.

We experienced an ownership change under IRC Section 382 in 2010. In general, a Section 382 ownership change occurs if there is a cumulative change in our ownership by “5% shareholders” (as defined in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended) that exceeds 50 percentage points over a rolling three-year period. An ownership change generally affects the rate at which NOLs and potential other deferred tax assets are permitted to offset future taxable income. Certain state jurisdictions within which we operate contain similar provisions and limitations. As of March 31, 2023, all of the remaining federal and state NOLs are subject to annual limitations due to the 2010 ownership change.

Management assesses the available positive and negative evidence to estimate if sufficient future taxable income will be generated to utilize the existing deferred tax assets. We analyzed our need to record a valuation allowance against our otherwise recognizable net deferred tax assets in the federal, state and foreign jurisdictions, and we determined that a valuation allowance on federal and state deferred tax assets was necessary at both March 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, while no valuation allowance on foreign deferred tax assets was necessary at both March 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022. The amount of deferred tax assets considered realizable could be adjusted in future periods if estimates of future taxable income during the carryforward period are reduced or increased, or if objective negative evidence in the form of cumulative losses is no longer present and additional weight is given to subjective evidence such as our projections for future profitability.

The Internal Revenue Code includes a provision, referred to as Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (“GILTI”), which provides for a 10.5% tax on certain income of controlled foreign corporations. We have elected to account for GILTI as a period cost if and when occurred, rather than recognizing deferred taxes for basis differences expected to reverse.

Of the $6.7 million of cash balances on hand at March 31, 2023, $2.7 million was held by our foreign subsidiaries. If these funds are needed for our operations in the U.S., we have several methods to repatriate the funds without significant tax effects, including repayment of intercompany loans or distributions of previously taxed income. Other distributions may require us to incur U.S. or foreign taxes to repatriate these funds. However, our intent is to permanently reinvest these funds outside the U.S. and our current plans do not demonstrate a need to repatriate cash to fund our U.S. operations.