Income Taxes

Income tax provisions for interim periods are based on estimated annual income tax rates, adjusted to reflect the effects of any significant infrequent or unusual items which are required to be discretely recognized within the current interim period. The Company’s intention is to permanently reinvest its foreign earnings outside of the United States. As a result, the effective tax rates in the periods presented are largely based upon the forecasted pre-tax earnings mix and allocation of certain expenses in various taxing jurisdictions where the Company conducts its business that apply a broad range of statutory income tax rates, a large majority of which are less than the U.S. statutory rate.

The effective tax rate for the three and six months ended June 30, 2015 and June 30, 2014 were as follows:



	Three Months Ended June 30,				Six Months Ended June 30,
In millions	2015		2014		2015		2014
Effective tax rate	(6.4	)%	27.3	%	(11.0	)%	27.6	%

For the three and six months ended June 30, 2015, there was a discrete tax item of $78 million resulting from the $340 million goodwill impairment recorded in the second quarter, of which $318 million is related to non-deductible goodwill. There were no material discrete tax items for the three and six months ended June 30, 2014. The difference in the effective tax rate period over period was primarily driven by the $78 million discrete tax impact from the goodwill impairment recorded in the second quarter of 2015.