Income Taxes

The following table presents the Company’s provision for income taxes and effective income tax rate for the periods below:



	Three months ended						Six months ended
	February 28, 2017			February 29, 2016			February 28, 2017			February 29, 2016
Provision for income taxes	$	4,699		$	5,031		$	11,938		$	12,496
Effective income tax rate	30.0		%	31.7		%	33.1		%	34.9		%

The lower effective income tax rate during the second quarter of fiscal year 2017 and for the first six months of fiscal year 2017 was due primarily to the recognition of excess tax benefits related to stock option exercises due to the early adoption of ASU No. 2016-09, “Compensation-Stock Compensation: Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting,” in the first quarter of 2017. Excess tax benefits recognized in the condensed consolidated statements of income were negligible in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017 and $0.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2017 as a component of the provision for income taxes. The early adoption of ASU No. 2016-09 resulted in a favorable effective tax rate impact of 4.7% in the second quarter of fiscal year 2017. Please refer to "Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements" section of note 1 - Summary of Significant Accounting Policies for details regarding the adoption of this standard. This decrease was partially offset by the favorable impact of the retroactive reinstatement of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016.