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Income Taxes
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2022
Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]  
Income Taxes
Note 18—Income Taxes
Our effective tax rate for the three-month periods ended September 30, 2022 and 2021 was 39.2 percent and 33.6 percent, respectively, and our effective tax rate for the nine-month periods ended September 30, 2022 and 2021 was 32.9 percent and 34.9 percent, respectively. Our effective tax rate for the first nine months of 2022 was impacted by the shift of income among our taxing jurisdictions, the release of tax reserves related to the closing of an IRS audit, a change to our valuation allowance and the impact of the interest deduction related to our debt exchange, as described below.

In the first quarter of 2022, the IRS closed the 2017 audit of our U.S. federal income tax return. As a result, we recognized federal and state tax benefits totaling $515 million relating to the recovery of outside tax basis previously offset by a full reserve.

During the second quarter of 2022, Norway enacted changes to the Petroleum Tax System. As a result of the enactment, a valuation allowance of $58 million was recorded during the second quarter to reflect changes to our ability to realize certain deferred tax assets under the new law.

For the nine-month period of 2022, our valuation allowance increased by $5 million, compared to a decrease of $156 million for the same period of 2021. The increase in the nine-month period of 2022 relates to the Norway tax law change described above. In addition, our nine-month periods of 2022 and 2021 include impacts from changes in our valuation allowance related to the fair value measurement of our CVE common shares and our expectation of the tax impact related to incremental capital gains and losses. See Note 5.

Our 2022 and 2021 effective tax rates were adversely impacted by $37 million and $75 million, respectively, due to incremental interest deductions from debt exchanges in both periods offsetting U.S. foreign source revenue that would otherwise have been offset by foreign tax credits. See Note 6.

On August 16, 2022, the U.S. enacted the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which, among other things, implements a 15 percent minimum tax on book income of certain large corporations, a 1 percent excise tax on net stock repurchases and several tax incentives to promote lower carbon energy. We are continuing to evaluate the impacts of this legislation; however, we do not believe any impacts will be material to our consolidated financial statements.

The Company has ongoing income tax audits in a number of jurisdictions. The government agents in charge of these audits regularly request additional time to complete audits, which we generally grant, and conversely occasionally close audits unpredictably. Within the next twelve months, we may have audit periods close that could significantly impact our total unrecognized tax benefits. The amount of such change is not estimable but could be significant when compared with our total unrecognized tax benefits.