Income Taxes

Effective Income Tax Rate and Income Tax Provision

On December 22, 2017, the TCJA was enacted, substantially changing the U.S. tax system and affecting the Company in a number of ways. Notably, the TCJA:


•	establishes a flat corporate income tax rate of 21.0% on U.S. earnings;


•	imposes a one-time tax on unremitted cumulative non-U.S. earnings of foreign subsidiaries (“Transition Tax”);


•	generally allows for the repatriation of future earnings of foreign subsidiaries without incurring additional U.S. taxes by transitioning to a territorial system of taxation;


•	imposes a new minimum tax on certain non-U.S. earnings, irrespective of the territorial system of taxation, global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI);


•	subjects certain payments made by a U.S. company to a related foreign company to certain minimum taxes (Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax);


•	eliminates certain prior tax incentives for manufacturing in the United States and creates an incentive for U.S. companies to sell, lease or license goods and services abroad by allowing for a reduction in taxes owed on earnings related to such sales;


•	allows the cost of investments in certain depreciable assets acquired and placed in service after September 27, 2017 to be immediately expensed;


•	reduces deductions with respect to certain compensation paid to specified executive officers; and


•	allows for installment payments to be paid over a period of eight years and the first installment was paid in 2018.

On December 22, 2017, Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 118 (“SAB 118”) was issued to address the application of U.S. GAAP in situations when a registrant does not have the necessary information available, prepared or analyzed in reasonable detail to complete the accounting for certain income tax effects of TCJA. SAB 118 provides that where reasonable estimates can be made, the provisional accounting should be based on such estimates and when no reasonable estimate can be made, the provisional accounting may be based on the tax law in effect before the TCJA. We have applied the guidance in SAB 118 when accounting for the enactment-date effects of TCJA. Accordingly, we remeasured U.S. deferred tax assets and liabilities based on the income tax rates at which the deferred tax assets and liabilities are expected to reverse in the future (generally 21.0%), in 2017. This remeasurement resulted in $41.1 million of tax expense for the year ended December 31, 2017. At December 31, 2017, we were not able to reasonably estimate the impact of Transition Tax and therefore our transition tax provision occurred in the first quarter of 2018. For a description of the impact of the TCJA for the year ended December 31, 2017, reference is made to Note 16, “Income Taxes,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements contained in Part II, Item 8 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017.

The one-time Transition Tax is based on our total post-1986 earnings and profits ("E&P"), which we had deferred from U.S taxes under prior law. During the nine months ended September 30, 2018, the Company recognized a provisional tax liability of $290.0 million for the Transition Tax. We filed our 2017 U.S. income tax return on October 15, 2018, and expect to complete the accounting for Transition Tax in the fourth quarter of 2018 when the analysis of the tax position is finalized.

For interim tax reporting, we estimate one single effective tax rate for tax jurisdictions not subject to a valuation allowance, which is applied to the year-to-date ordinary income/(loss). Tax effects of significant unusual or infrequently occurring items are excluded from the estimated annual effective tax rate calculation and recognized in the interim period in which they occur.

Our effective income tax rate was 30.6% and 114.5% for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018. The difference between the Company’s effective income tax rate and the U.S. statutory rate of 21.0% relates to the provisional amount for Transition Tax associated with the TCJA, withholding taxes, non-deductible expenses, state income taxes, and the effect of the GILTI provision enacted as part of the TCJA, partially offset by the benefits from lapses in statute of limitations on foreign unrecognized tax benefits.

Our effective income tax rate was 41.1% and 86.2% for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017. The effective income tax rate for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 was higher than our calculated interim rate primarily as a result of distributions of earnings which had previously been determined to be indefinitely reinvested in operations outside the United States. Our change in assertion for these investments was related to distributions in anticipation of the sale of Diversey.

The GILTI provisions, which require us to include in our U.S. income tax return foreign subsidiary earnings in excess of an allowable return on the foreign subsidiary's tangible assets, are complex and subject to continuing regulatory interpretation by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"). We are required to make an accounting policy election to either (1) treat taxes due on future U.S. inclusions in taxable income related to GILTI as a current period expense when incurred (the “period cost method”) or (2) factor such amounts into the Company’s measurement of its deferred taxes (the “deferred method”). We have elected to recognize the GILTI as a period expense in the period the tax is incurred. Under this policy, we have not provided deferred taxes related to temporary differences that upon their reversal will affect the amount of income subject to GILTI in the period. This election increases the annual effective tax rate by approximately 2.5%. We will continue to refine our calculation which may result in changes to this amount.