Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2018

Note 11 – Income Taxes
Income tax expense consists of the following:
	Six Months Ended
	June 30,
(in thousands)		2018		2017
			(as adjusted)
Federal – current	$	(81)	$	(678)
Foreign – current		24,992		3,379
State – current		7,712		162
Deferred		10,936		1,360
	$	43,559	$	4,223

The U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (U.S. Tax Reform), which was signed into law on December 22, 2017, significantly changed U.S. tax law by, among other things, lowering corporate income tax rates, implementing a territorial tax system and imposing a transition tax on deemed repatriated earnings of foreign subsidiaries. The U.S. Tax Reform reduced the U.S. corporate income tax rate from a maximum of 35% to a flat 21% rate, effective January 1, 2018.

To minimize tax base erosion with a territorial tax system, the U.S. Tax Reform enacted a new global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) provision. Under the GILTI provision, certain foreign subsidiary earnings in excess of an allowable return on the foreign subsidiary’s depreciable tangible assets are included in U.S. taxable income offset by a limited deemed paid foreign tax credit. The Company is subject to the GILTI provisions due to its operations in foreign jurisdictions.

As of December 31, 2017, the Company had approximately $928 million in cumulative undistributed foreign earnings outside the U.S. Substantially all of these undistributed earnings are subject to the U.S. mandatory repatriation tax and are eligible to be repatriated to the U.S. without additional U.S. tax under the U.S. Tax Reform. The Company has historically asserted its intention to indefinitely reinvest undistributed foreign earnings. The Company no longer considers these earnings to be indefinitely reinvested in its foreign subsidiaries. As a result of this change in assertion for undistributed earnings prior to December 31, 2017, the Company recorded $30.7 million of deferred tax expense for foreign withholding tax from Asia and $9.4 million of deferred U.S. state income tax expense in the first three months of 2018. During the six months ended June 30, 2018, the Company repatriated $522.0 million of foreign earnings to the U.S. For future undistributed earnings earned after December 31, 2017, the Company intends to indefinitely reinvest certain future undistributed foreign earnings from certain jurisdictions, and repatriate future earnings from other specific jurisdictions as part of its foreign cash management strategy around the world.

Excluding the impact of these items, income tax expense differs from the amount computed by applying the U.S. federal statutory income tax rate to income before income tax primarily due to the mix of taxable income by taxing jurisdiction, the impact of tax incentives and tax holidays in foreign locations, state income taxes (net of federal benefit) and the U.S. tax under GILTI.

The Company has been granted certain tax incentives, including tax holidays, for its subsidiaries in China, Malaysia and Thailand that will expire at various dates, unless extended or otherwise renegotiated, through 2018 in China, 2021 in Malaysia and 2028 in Thailand, and are subject to certain conditions with which the Company expects to comply. The net impact of these tax incentives was to lower income tax expense for the six months ended June 30, 2018 and 2017 by approximately $6.6 million (approximately $0.14 per diluted share) and $4.2 million (approximately $0.08 per diluted share), respectively, as follows:

	Six Months Ended
	June 30,
(in thousands)		2018		2017
China	$	969	$	471
Malaysia		2,551		1,773
Thailand		3,070		1,926
	$	6,590	$	4,170

As of June 30, 2018, the total amount of the reserve for uncertain tax benefits including interest was $0.3 million. The reserve is classified as a current or long-term liability in the condensed consolidated balance sheets based on the Company’s expectation of when the items will be settled. The amount of accrued potential interest on unrecognized tax benefits included in the reserve as of June 30, 2018, was $47.0 thousand. There was no reserve for potential penalties. During the six months ended June 30, 2018, the Company released $0.5 million of uncertain tax benefits from a U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit related to the Secure Communication Systems, Inc. acquisition. During the first quarter of 2018, the IRS indicated that this examination of years 2013 to 2015 was closed. In addition, the IRS also notified the Company that the examination of the Company’s consolidated U.S. income tax return filings for 2014 was also closed with no additional tax costs.

The Company and its subsidiaries in Brazil, China, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Romania, Singapore, Thailand and the United States remain open to examination by the various local taxing authorities, in total or in part, for fiscal years 2011 to 2017. Currently, the Company does not have any ongoing tax examinations by any jurisdiction. During the course of such tax examinations, disputes may occur as to matters of fact or law. Also, in most tax jurisdictions, the passage of time without examination will result in the expiration of applicable statutes of limitations thereby precluding examination of the tax period(s) for which such statute of limitation has expired. The Company believes that it has adequately provided for its tax liabilities.