5. INCOME TAXES

The effective income tax rates for the first quarters of 2017 and 2016 were as follows:


Quarter Ended March 31,
2017			2016
	9	%		35	%

The lower first quarter 2017 effective income tax rate reflects an approximately $5 million net benefit resulting from Comcast’s exercise of 1.4 million vested stock warrants in January 2017, discussed below in Note 8. The stock warrants have appreciated in value since their vesting resulting in an income tax benefit to us when exercised. Additionally, as discussed in Note 2, we adopted ASU 2016-09, Compensation – Stock Compensation (Topic 718) in the first quarter of 2017. This ASU requires a change in the recognition of excess tax benefits and tax deficiencies, related to share-based payment transactions, which were recorded in equity, and now are recorded discrete to the quarter incurred as a component of income tax expense in the income statement. The adoption of this ASU provided an approximately $1 million benefit to our first quarter effective income tax rate and is expected to provide an approximately $2 million benefit for the full year. For the full-year 2017 we are currently estimating an effective income tax rate of approximately 31%.