Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2024

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Taxes

Income Taxes

The income tax expense decreased $543 million between quarterly periods from $2.9 billion in 2023 to $2.4 billion in 2024. The company’s income before income tax expense decreased $1.6 billion from $9.5 billion in 2023 to $7.9 billion in 2024, primarily due to lower downstream margins and natural gas realizations, partly offset by higher upstream sales volumes in the U.S. The company’s effective tax rate decreased slightly between quarterly periods from 31 percent in 2023 to 30 percent in 2024. The change in effective tax rate is primarily due to mix effects resulting from the absolute level of earnings or losses and whether they arose in higher or lower tax rate jurisdictions.

The company engages in ongoing discussions with tax authorities regarding the resolution of tax matters in various jurisdictions. Both the outcomes for these tax matters and the timing of resolution and/or closure of the tax audits are highly uncertain. Given the number of years that still remain subject to examination and the number of matters being examined in the various tax jurisdictions, the company is unable to estimate the range of possible adjustments to the balance of unrecognized tax benefits