Taxes

For the six months ended June 30, 2015 and 2014, we recognized a benefit for income taxes of $3 million and $2 million, respectively. The following is a reconciliation of the statutory federal and state tax rates to our projected annual effective rate at June 30, 2015 and 2014.

Reconciliation of Statutory Tax Rate to Effective Tax Rate



	June 30, 2015		June 30, 2014
Federal statutory rate	34.0	%	34.0	%
State statutory rate, net of Federal tax effect	7.2	%	7.2	%
Differences in taxable (loss) income from GAAP income	(15.6	)%	(2.5	)%
Change in valuation allowance	1.6	%	1.2	%
Dividends paid deduction	(34.6	)%	(45.5	)%
Effective Tax Rate	(7.4	)%	(5.6	)%

The negative effective tax rate for the six months ended June 30, 2015 and 2014, resulted from a benefit for income taxes being recorded against GAAP losses generated at our taxable REIT subsidiaries, while the consolidated income statement reported GAAP income. On a consolidated basis, GAAP income generated at the REIT, for which no material tax provision was recorded, due to the dividends paid deduction, exceeded the losses at the taxable REIT subsidiaries.

We assessed our tax positions for all open tax years (Federal - years 2011 to 2015, State - years 2010- 2015) and, at June 30, 2015 and December 31, 2014, concluded that we had no uncertain tax positions that resulted in material unrecognized tax benefits.