Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2019

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Taxes

Note 4 - Income Taxes

Recorded income tax (expense) or benefit differs from the amounts that would be provided by applying the statutory United States federal income tax rate to income or loss before income taxes. These differences primarily relate to the effect of state income taxes, excess tax benefits and deficiencies from share-based compensation awards, tax limitations on the compensation of certain covered individuals, changes in valuation allowances, and the cumulative impact of other smaller permanent differences. The quarterly rate can also be affected by the proportional impacts of forecast net income or loss for each period end presented, as reflected in the table below.

The provision for income taxes for the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, and 2018, consisted of the following:

	For the Three Months Ended June 30,						For the Six Months Ended June 30,
	2019			2018			2019			2018
	(in thousands)
Current portion of income tax (expense) benefit:
Federal	$	—		$	—		$	—		$	—
State	176			40			(789		)	(585		)
Deferred portion of income tax (expense) benefit	(13,766		)	861			33,237			(97,505		)
Income tax (expense) benefit	$	(13,590	)	$	901		$	32,448		$	(98,090	)
Effective tax rate	21.2		%	(5.5		)%	20.3		%	22.7		%

The change in the Company’s effective tax rate for the periods presented above generally reflects differences in the estimated highest marginal state tax rate due to changes in the composition of income or loss from Company activities, including divestitures, among multiple state tax jurisdictions. Future periods are not expected to reflect these differences as the Company’s current activities are occurring predominately in Texas. For all years before 2015, the Company is generally no longer subject to United States federal or state income tax examinations by tax authorities.