Income Taxes

The Company maintains income tax valuation allowances on its U.S. Federal and state deferred tax assets due to a three year cumulative loss condition, which limits the ability to consider other positive subjective evidence, such as projections of future results, to assess the realizability of deferred tax assets. Results in both 2018 and 2017 include impacts from income taxes that differ from applicable standard tax rates, primarily related to the income tax valuation allowance. Second quarter 2018 results included a provision for income taxes of $4.9 million, or 6.1% of income before income taxes, primarily related to income taxes on non-U.S. operations. The overall income tax provision for the second quarter 2018 includes offsetting discrete adjustments of $5.9 million of tax expense resulting from transition tax and a $5.9 million discrete tax benefit related to amending tax returns for prior periods, both discussed below. The second quarter 2017 benefit for income taxes was $2.1 million, which included $5.4 million of discrete tax benefits largely related to the effects of amending tax returns for prior periods in certain domestic jurisdictions.

The Company continues to account for impacts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Tax Act) as estimated amounts, pending further information and analysis, which includes final tax return filings, analysis of foreign earnings and profits (E&P), and interpretive Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance. The Company estimated the impact of the Tax Act as part of the 2017 year-end financial statements. Additional IRS guidance and Internal Revenue Code (IRC) elections have been published, which have aided in refining the initial estimate related to the tax on the mandatory repatriation of foreign earnings, otherwise known as the “transition tax”. The transition tax is a tax on certain previously untaxed accumulated and current E&P of the Company’s foreign subsidiaries. The Company was able to reasonably estimate the transition tax and recorded an initial provisional transition tax liability of $0 as of December 31, 2017. The initial estimate was approximately $100 million of federal taxable income on the mandatory deemed repatriation of foreign E&P, for which the Company planned to utilize a portion of its federal net operating loss (NOL) deferred tax asset to fully offset the estimated transition tax liability of $35 million. On the basis of revised E&P computations that were calculated during the second quarter of 2018, as well as further IRS guidance issued during this 2018 period, the Company recognized an additional measurement-period adjustment of $5.9 million related to the transition tax liability, with a corresponding adjustment of $5.9 million to income tax expense during the period. This was based on the Company’s updated untaxed foreign E&P estimate of $97.5 million, resulting in a transition tax liability of $34.1 million. The Company’s current strategy is to make an election to not utilize NOLs to offset the transition tax liability, and instead utilize available tax credits of $28.2 million, resulting in a remaining transition tax liability of $5.9 million. However, the Company continues to gather additional information to more precisely compute the amount of the transition tax, and the accounting for this item is not yet complete because the calculation of foreign E&P continues as tax returns are completed, and further IRS guidance in this area is expected to be issued in the second half of 2018. The Company expects to complete the accounting within the prescribed one-year measurement period from the Tax Act enactment date. The transition tax liability is payable over eight years under the IRC, and the first installment payment of $0.5 million was paid in April 2018.

The adoption of this strategy would preserve $97.5 million federal NOL tax attributes that the Company expects it will be able to utilize before expiration, while using tax credits that would potentially expire due to utilization limitations. The overall impact on the Company’s deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2017 is zero due to the net valuation allowance position. Changes to certain deferred tax assets and the valuation allowance at December 31, 2017 as a result of the Company’s expected use of tax credits to meet a portion of the transition tax were as follows (in millions):



Deferred Income Tax Assets	Estimate Refinement			Originally Reported			Change
Net operating loss tax carryovers	$	357.0		$	336.1		$	20.9
Tax credits	$	62.4		$	92.6		$	(30.2	)

Gross deferred income tax assets	$	733.6		$	742.9		$	(9.3	)
Valuation allowance	(264.7		)	(274.0		)	9.3
Total deferred income tax assets	$	468.9		$	468.9		$	—

The utilization of the tax credits of $28.2 million does not match the change in the deferred tax asset amount due to the refinement of the transition tax calculation.

Discrete tax benefits of $5.9 million were recognized in the second quarter of 2018 relating to valuation allowance releases resulting from the acceptance of net operating loss carryback claims and amendments of historical tax returns due to changes in estimated tax credit utilization resulting from recently-issued IRS guidance.

For the first six months of 2018, the provision for income taxes was $9.9 million, or 6.8%, compared to a benefit for income taxes of $0.1 million, for the comparable 2017 period. The first six months of 2018 included no discrete tax items on a net basis, while the comparable 2017 period included discrete tax benefits of $6.7 million.