Income Taxes |
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Feb. 28, 2019 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Income Taxes |
Note 12. Income Taxes
The Company's income tax expense or benefit is impacted by a number of factors, including the amount of taxable earnings generated in foreign jurisdictions with tax rates that are different than the U.S. federal statutory rate, permanent items, state tax rates and the ability to utilize various tax credits and net operating loss carryforwards. The Company's global operations, acquisition activity and specific tax attributes provide opportunities for continuous global tax planning initiatives to maximize tax credits and deductions. Comparative earnings (loss) before income taxes, income tax expense and effective income tax rates are as follows (amounts in thousands):
The Company’s income tax expense and effective tax rate for the three and six months ended February 28, 2019 were impacted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Act”), which was enacted into law on December 22, 2017. The Act includes significant changes to the U.S. corporate income tax system which reduce the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% as of January 1, 2018; shifts to a modified territorial tax regime which requires companies to pay a transition tax on earnings of certain foreign subsidiaries that were previously deferred from U.S. income tax; and creates new minimum taxes on certain foreign-sourced earnings that were previously deferred from U.S. federal tax. New provisions under the Act are effective for the Company for fiscal 2019 and include the Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (“GILTI”) provision, the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (“FDII”) benefit, the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (“BEAT”), the limitation on interest expense deductions and certain executive compensation, and the elimination of U.S. tax on dividends received from certain foreign subsidiaries.
During the second quarter, final transition tax regulations were issued, which resulted in an adjusted transition tax liability of $3.0 million. The liability resulting from the transition tax will be fully offset by available foreign tax credits and will not result in future cash payments.
The comparability of earnings (loss) before income taxes, income tax expense and the related effective income tax rates are impacted by the Act as described above, along with impairment & divestiture charges. Results included $6.9 million and $43.3 million ($6.7 million and $40.5 million after tax, respectively) of impairment & divestiture charges for the three and six months ended February 28, 2019 and $3.0 million ($12.4 million after tax) impairment & divestiture charges for the three and six months ended February 28, 2018. Excluding the impairment & divestiture charges, the effective tax rate for the three and six months ended February 28, 2019 was 38.8% and 24.8%, respectively, as compared to 226.8% and 105.3% for the three and six months ended February 28, 2018. The income tax benefit without impairment & divestiture charges for the six months ended February 28, 2019 is significantly impacted by a $2.6 million benefit related to the Act, as compared to the six months ended February 28, 2018 which includes $1.5 million of tax expense related to the shortfall of tax benefits on deductible equity compensation and the expiration of unexercised stock options and $7.9 million of tax expense related to the Act. Additionally, both the current and prior year effective income tax rates were impacted by the proportion of earnings in foreign jurisdictions with income tax rates different than the U.S. federal income tax rate. The Company's earnings (loss) before income taxes include approximately 70% and 75% of earnings from foreign jurisdictions for the estimated full-year fiscal 2019 and 2018, respectively. This foreign income tax rate differential had a minimal impact to the effective income tax rate as a result of the new U.S. statutory rate of 21% for the six months ended February 28, 2019; however, for the six months ended February 28, 2018, the foreign income tax rate differential had the effect of reducing the effective income tax rate from the 25.7% U.S. statutory tax rate by 5.2%.
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