Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2021

Income Taxes [Abstract]

Income Taxes

8. Income Taxes

Provision for income taxes for the first quarter of 2021 was $17.1 million, compared to $10.7 million for the prior-year period. The effective tax rates for the first quarter 2021 was 26.5% of pre-tax income compared to 35.1% in the prior-year period.

The Company accounts for income taxes in accordance with ASC Topic 740 ‘‘Income Taxes.’’ These standards establish financial accounting and reporting standards for the effects of income taxes that result from an enterprise’s activities during the current and preceding years.  The Company takes an asset and liability approach for financial accounting and reporting of income taxes.  The Company pays income taxes in many foreign jurisdictions based on the profits realized in those jurisdictions, which can be significantly impacted by terms of intercompany transactions between the Company and its foreign affiliates.  Deferred tax assets and liabilities are created in this process. The Company has netted these deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities by jurisdiction. Valuation allowances are established when necessary to reduce deferred tax assets to the amounts expected to be ultimately realized. The Company had net deferred tax assets of $29.9 million and $34.8 million as of March 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020, respectively.

The Company evaluates its indefinite reinvestment assertions with respect to foreign earnings for each quarter.  For all foreign earnings, the Company accrues the applicable foreign income taxes. For the earnings that have been indefinitely reinvested, the Company does not accrue foreign withholding taxes. Undistributed earnings that the Company has indefinitely reinvested, for which no foreign withholding taxes have been provided, aggregate to $60.0 million as of December 31, 2020. If the amount designated as indefinitely reinvested as of December 31, 2020 was repatriated to the United States, the amount of incremental taxes would be approximately $6.0 million.  The Company intends to utilize the indefinitely reinvested offshore earnings to fund foreign investments, specifically capital expenditures.

The Company files income tax returns in the U.S. federal jurisdiction, and in various state and foreign jurisdictions. The Company is no longer subject to tax examinations from the IRS for all years for which tax returns have been filed before 2020. With a few exceptions, the Company is no longer subject to state and local income tax examination by tax authorities for the years before 2016. In 2009, the Company entered into a voluntary program with the IRS called Compliance Assurance Process (“CAP”). The objective of CAP is to contemporaneously work with the IRS to achieve federal tax compliance and resolve all or most of the issues prior to filing of the tax return. The Company has elected to participate in CAP for 2021 and may elect to continue participating in CAP for future tax years; the Company may withdraw from the program at any time. In major foreign jurisdictions, the Company is generally no longer subject to income tax examinations for years before 2015. However, statutes of limitations in certain countries may be as long as ten years. The Company is currently under examination in certain foreign jurisdictions; however, the outcomes of those reviews are not yet determinable. The Company’s unrecognized tax benefits relate to multiple jurisdictions. Due to potential increases in unrecognized tax benefits from the multiple jurisdictions in which the Company operates, as well as the expiration of various statutes of limitations, it is reasonably possible that the Company’s gross unrecognized tax benefits, net of foreign currency adjustments, may decrease in the next 12 months by approximately $0.1 to $1.1 million.