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Note 16 - Income Taxes | 9 Months Ended
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Jul. 31, 2021
Notes to Financial Statements |
Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block] |
16. | Income Taxes
The total income tax expense for the three months ended July 31, 2021 was $14.1 million. The federal tax expense was primarily related to pretax income generated during the quarter and state tax expense from income generated in states where we do not have net operating loss carryforwards to offset the current year income. The total benefit for the nine months ended July 31, 2021 was $442.9 million. The benefit was primarily due to the reversal of a substantial portion of our valuation allowance previously recorded against our deferred tax assets. The total income tax expense for the three and nine months ended July 31, 2020 was $0.9 million and $2.7 million, respectively. The total income tax expense was primarily related to state tax expense from income generated that was not offset by tax benefits in states where we fully reserve the tax benefit from net operating losses. In addition, the expense for the nine months ended July 31, 2020 was related to state tax expense from the impact of a cancellation of debt income recorded for tax purposes but not for GAAP purposes, creating a permanent difference. Our federal net operating losses of $1.3 billion expire between 2028 and 2038, and $15.7 million have an indefinite carryforward period. Of our $2.4 billion of state NOLs, $232.6 million expire between 2021 through 2025; $1.3 billion expire between 2026 through 2030; $587.9 million expire between 2031 through 2035; $238.3 million expire between 2036 through 2040; and $48.8 million have an indefinite carryforward period. On December 27, 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) was enacted and signed into U.S. law to provide additional economic relief in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The CAA did not have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial conditions or results of operations as of and for the nine months ended July 31, 2021. We will continue to monitor additional guidance issued by the U.S. Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and various state agencies. Deferred federal and state income tax assets ("DTAs") primarily represent the deferred tax benefits arising from NOL carryforwards and temporary differences between book and tax income which will be recognized in future years as an offset against future taxable income. If the combination of future years’ income (or loss) and the reversal of the timing differences results in a loss, such losses can be carried forward to future years. In accordance with ASC 740, we evaluate our DTAs quarterly to determine if valuation allowances are required. ASC 740 requires that companies assess whether valuation allowances should be established based on the consideration of all available evidence using a “more likely than not” standard. As of July 31, 2021, we considered all available positive and negative evidence to determine whether, based on the weight of that evidence, our valuation allowance for our DTAs was appropriate in accordance with ASC 740. Listed below, in order of the weighting of each factor, is the available positive and negative evidence that we considered in determining that it is more likely than not that we will realize a substantial portion of our DTAs and that a full valuation allowance is not necessary. In analyzing these factors, overall the positive evidence, both objective and subjective, outweighed the negative evidence. Based on this analysis, we determined that the current valuation allowance for deferred taxes of $102.9 million as of July 31, 2021, which partially reserves for our state DTAs, is appropriate.
| 1. | As of July 31, 2021, on a tax basis, the Company had adjusted pre-tax income, which is income before income taxes excluding land-related charges and loss (gain) on extinguishment of debt, on a three-year cumulative basis. On a U.S. GAAP basis, the Company had generated $176.3 million of cumulative pre-tax income in the three years ended July 31, 2021, with $112.4 million of that generated in the last nine months. We also generated $55.4 million of pre-tax income for our fiscal year ended October 31, 2020. We believe this positive improvement over the last 24 months will continue given the strength of our contract backlog and the current homebuilding market conditions. (Positive Objective Evidence)
| 2. | Over the last several years, we have completed a number of debt refinancing/restructuring transactions which, by extending our debt maturities, will enable us to allocate cash to invest in new communities and grow our community count to get back to sustained profitability. (Positive Objective Evidence)
| 3. | On July 30, 2021 we paid off in full $111.2 million of 10.0% 2022 Notes and on August 2, 2021, we paid off in full $69.7 million of 10.5% 2024 Notes. These actions reduced our annual interest incurred by approximately $19 million, enhancing our profitability going forward. (Positive Objective Evidence)
| 4. | We incurred pre-tax losses during the housing market decline that began in 2007 and the slower than expected housing market recovery. Given our current highly leveraged balance sheet, a downturn in the housing market, would be significantly more damaging to the Company than to other better capitalized homebuilders and would make it very difficult for the Company to avoid future losses, given our high interest burden. (Negative Objective Evidence)
| 5. | We exited several geographic markets over the last few years that have historically had losses. By exiting these underperforming markets, the Company has been able to redeploy capital to better performing markets, which over time should improve our profitability. (Positive Subjective Evidence)
| 6. | The historical cyclicality of the U.S. housing market, a more restrictive mortgage lending environment compared to before the housing downturn of 2007-2009, the uncertainty of the overall U.S. economy and government policies and consumer confidence, and impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic, all or any of which could continue to hamper a sustained, stronger recovery of the housing market. (Negative Subjective Evidence)
The significant positive improvement in our operations in the last 24 months, which further accelerated in the third quarter ended July 31, 2021, coupled with our contract backlog of $1.8 billion as of July 31, 2021 provided positive evidence to support the conclusion that a full valuation allowance is not necessary for all of our DTAs. As such, we used our go forward projections to estimate our usage of our existing federal and state DTAs. From that review, we concluded that we no longer needed any valuation allowance for our federal DTAs. However, with respect to our state DTAs, we concluded that a valuation allowance of $102.9 million was still necessary related to states that have shorter carryforward periods or from states where we have significantly reduced or eliminated our operations and thus are not able to project that we will fully utilize those DTAs. As of October 31, 2020, we had a valuation allowance of $396.5 million of federal deferred tax assets related to NOLs, as well as other matters, all of which has been reversed as of July 31, 2021. We also had a valuation allowance of $181.0 million of deferred tax assets related to state NOLs as of October 31, 2020, of which $78.1 million was reversed in the second quarter of fiscal 2021 and $102.9 million remains at July 31, 2021.

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