Income Taxes

The income tax benefit consists of the following:



	Three Months Ended June 30,						Six Months Ended June 30,
(millions)	2016			2015			2016			2015
Current	$	45		$	99		$	65		$	109
Deferred	(228		)	(283		)	(414		)	(312		)
Total Income Tax Benefit	$	(183	)	$	(184	)	$	(349	)	$	(203	)
Effective Tax Rate	36.7		%	62.8		%	36.7		%	60.8		%

Accumulated Undistributed Earnings of Foreign Subsidiaries As of December 31, 2015, we no longer consider our foreign subsidiaries’ undistributed earnings to be indefinitely reinvested outside the United States and, accordingly, recorded additional deferred income taxes, net of estimated foreign tax credits.

Effective Tax Rate (ETR) Our ETR for the three months and six months ended June 30, 2016, varied as compared with three months and six months ended June 30, 2015 primarily as a result of a tax benefit. This is primarily due to a higher income tax benefit as compared with the change in the components of the overall net loss from period to period, which is impacted by certain income items with different tax rates.

Also, during 2016, the change in our permanent reinvestment assumption, noted above, resulted in additional deferred income tax expense (net of estimated foreign tax credits) being recorded on certain income items, including income from equity method investees and increased earnings in our foreign jurisdictions with rates that vary from the US statutory rate. This additional deferred income tax expense had the result of offsetting our income tax benefit to a greater extent in the three months and six months ended June 30, 2016 thereby driving the ETR lower than it would have been if additional deferred taxes had not been recorded.

In our major tax jurisdictions, the earliest years remaining open to examination are as follows: US – 2012, Equatorial Guinea – 2011 and Israel – 2011.