INCOME TAXES

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the TCJA) was signed into law on December 22, 2017, with an effective date of January 1, 2018, for substantially all of the provisions. This comprehensive act includes significant reform of the current income tax code including changes in the calculation for business entities and a reduction in the corporate federal income tax rate from 35% to 21%. The specific provisions related to regulated public utilities in the TCJA generally allow for the continued deductibility of interest expense, the elimination of full expensing for tax purposes of certain property acquired after September 27, 2017, and the continuation of certain rate normalization requirements for accelerated depreciation benefits.

ASC Topic 740, Income Taxes requires that the effects of changes in tax laws be recognized in the period in which the new law is enacted, or the quarter ended December 31, 2017. It also requires deferred tax assets and liabilities to be measured at the enacted tax rate expected to apply when temporary differences are to be realized or settled. For the Company’s regulated entities, the changes in deferred taxes related to the regulated operations are recorded as either an offset to or creation of a regulatory asset or liability and may be subject to refund to customers in future periods. The changes in deferred taxes that are not associated with rate making (including all changes for the Company’s unregulated operations) are recorded as adjustments to deferred tax expense.

The Company has recorded TCJA impacts and reflected those amounts in the December 31, 2017, financial statements. The amounts recorded are based on information known and reasonable estimates used as of the end of the quarter ended December 31, 2017, but are subject to change based on a number of factors, including further actions of regulators, the Company filing its tax returns for the year ended September 30, 2017, and completion of the Company’s interim and annual financial statements for the year ending September 30, 2018. The items recorded include the impact of the federal income tax rate reduction and the revaluation of the deferred tax assets and liabilities. The amounts recorded, which had no impact on cash flows for the quarter ended December 31, 2017, are presented in the table below.



	Spire			Spire Missouri			Spire Alabama
Adjustment to deferred tax assets	$	—		$	—		$	(60.8	)
Adjustment to deferred tax liabilities	(296.6		)	(264.1		)	—

Adjustment to deferred income tax expense	(59.9		)	(43.9		)	59.2

Adjustment to regulatory assets	(59.4		)	(61.0		)	1.6
Adjustment to regulatory liabilities	177.3			159.2			—

As indicated in Note 1, the Company’s regulated operations accounting for income taxes is impacted by ASC 980, Regulated Operations. Reductions in deferred income tax balances due to the reduction in the corporate income tax rate will result in amounts previously collected from utility customers for these deferred taxes to be refundable to such customers, generally through reductions in future rates. The TCJA includes provisions that stipulate how these excess deferred taxes are to be passed back to customers for certain accelerated tax depreciation benefits. Potential refunds of other deferred taxes will be determined by state regulators. The Company is also addressing with state regulators the reduction of the corporate income tax rate in the current rates being charged to utility customers. The decrease in tax rate will result in an over-collection of income taxes from January 1, 2018, until the rates are reset. The Company anticipates recording an adjustment to future rates to account for this matter.