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Income Taxes
9 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2018
Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]  
Income Taxes
INCOME TAXES

The Company operates in the United States and many foreign countries and is subject to the tax laws of many jurisdictions. Changes in tax laws or the interpretation of tax laws can affect the Company’s earnings, as can the resolution of pending and contested tax issues. The Company's consolidated effective income tax rate is affected by a number of factors, including the mix of domestic and foreign earnings and the effect of exchange rate changes on deferred taxes.
    
In December 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. This new law made significant changes to U.S. income taxation at the federal level for individuals, pass-through entities, and corporations. For corporations, the changes included a reduction in the statutory rate on taxable income from 35% to 21% and a move from a worldwide tax system to a system that is more territorial-based for companies with foreign operations. To accommodate the move from the previous worldwide tax system, the law provided for a one-time transition tax on the undistributed post-1986 earnings of foreign subsidiaries as of either November 2, 2017 or December 31, 2017, whichever undistributed earnings amount was greater. Other provisions of the new law allow for immediate expensing of investments in property, plant, and equipment and impose limitations on the deductibility of interest, executive compensation, and meals and entertainment expense. For tax years beginning after the date of enactment, the new law requires that certain income earned by foreign subsidiaries, referred to in the law as global intangible low-taxed income ("GILTI"), be included in the U.S. taxable income of the parent company. The Company has made an accounting policy election to account for any additional tax resulting from the GILTI provisions in the year in which it is incurred and has not recorded any deferred taxes on temporary book-tax differences related to this income. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, the Company’s U.S. federal statutory tax rate is the 21% rate under the new law. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, the Company's U.S. federal statutory tax rate was 31.5%, reflecting a portion of the year at the 35% rate under the old law and a portion at the 21% rate under the new law. As in prior years, the Company continues to assume repatriation of all undistributed earnings of its consolidated foreign subsidiaries and has therefore provided for expected foreign withholding taxes on the distribution of those earnings where applicable, net of any U.S. tax credit attributable to those withholding taxes.

Under the applicable accounting guidance, the Company accounted for the effects of the changes in the U.S. tax law in the period in which they were enacted, which was the third quarter of fiscal year 2018. The changes resulted in a one-time reduction of income tax expense of approximately $10.5 million for the quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2017, primarily from remeasuring deferred tax assets and liabilities to the tax rates at which they are expected to reverse in future periods and from adjusting the liability recorded for U.S. income taxes on undistributed foreign earnings to the amounts expected to be paid under specific one-time transition tax provisions of the new law. Due to the complexities associated with understanding and applying various aspects of the new law and quantifying or estimating amounts upon which calculations required to account for new law were based, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued guidance permitting corporations to record and report specific items impacted by the new law on a provisional basis using reasonable estimates where final amounts had not been determined. The guidance allowed a measurement period of no more than one year from the date of enactment of the new law to complete all adjustments to amounts recorded on a provisional basis. In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2018, the one-time reduction of income tax expense for the effect of the new law was lowered from $10.5 million to $4.5 million, reflecting the collection and analysis of additional information for certain foreign subsidiaries, as well as subsequent clarifying guidance issued with respect to the new law. Further adjustments after the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2018 were not material, and all effects of the new law that were previously accounted for on a provisional basis have been designated as final during the quarter ended December 31, 2018.
The consolidated effective income tax rates for the quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2018 were approximately 20% and 19%, respectively.  During the first and second quarters, the Company reversed amounts previously recorded for dividend withholding taxes on distributed and undistributed retained earnings of a foreign subsidiary.  The reversal followed the resolution of uncertainties with the local country taxing authorities with respect to the inclusion of the tax under a tax holiday applicable to the subsidiary and was attributable to retained earnings amounts previously distributed or expected to be distributed prior to the expiration of the tax holiday.  Without the dividend withholding tax reversal, the consolidated effective income tax rate for the nine months would have been approximately 27%.  Consolidated income tax expense for the current year periods was generally based on the mix of U.S. and foreign earnings at the projected effective tax rates for fiscal year 2019 across all subsidiaries in their respective tax jurisdictions, plus certain incremental U.S. taxes applicable to a portion of the Company’s foreign earnings under the new tax law.  The effective tax rates for the quarter and nine months also reflect the benefit of various tax planning opportunities, as well as the net effect of several items that were accounted for on a discrete basis in each quarterly reporting period.
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The consolidated effective income tax rates for the quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2017, which were determined under the prior U.S. corporate income tax law, were approximately 19% and 24%, respectively.  With the exception of the $10.5 million one-time reduction of income tax expense from the enactment of the new law, those rates were primarily determined under the prior U.S. corporate income tax law. Excluding the one-time expense reduction related to the enactment of the new law, the effective income tax rates would have been approximately 36% and 34% for the quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2017, respectively. Consolidated income tax expense for those periods includes the net effect of smaller items that were accounted for on a discrete basis that did not materially impact the effective tax rate for either period.