Note 17 - Income Taxes

9 Months Ended

Dec. 28, 2014

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Tax Disclosure [Text Block]

NOTE 17. INCOME TAXES

During the three months and nine months ended December 28, 2014, we recorded an income tax expense of approximately $0.1 million and $0.9 million, respectively. The income tax expense was primarily related to the allocation of tax expense between continuing operations and other comprehensive income when applying the exception to ASC 740 intraperiod allocation rule upon liquidation of our available for sale security portfolio. During the three and nine months ended December 29, 2013, we recorded an income tax benefit of approximately $1.4 million and $8.2 million, respectively. The income tax benefit was primarily due to the lapsing of statute of limitation and the release of valuation allowance from Exar’s acquisition of Cadeka Microcircuits, LLC.

During the three months ended December 28, 2014, the unrecognized tax benefits increased by $0.3 million to $17.2 million primarily related to the reserve on California net operating losses (“NOL”). If recognized, $14.4 million of these unrecognized tax benefits (net of federal benefit) would be recorded as a reduction of future income tax provision before consideration of changes in valuation allowance.

Estimated interest and penalties related to the income taxes are classified as a component of the provision for income taxes in the condensed consolidated statement of operations. Accrued interest and penalties consisted of the following as of the dates indicated (in thousands):

	December 28, 2014		March 30, 2014
Accrued interest and penalties	$	1,327	$	83

Our major tax jurisdictions are the United States federal and various states, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Cayman Islands and certain other foreign jurisdictions. The fiscal years 2003 through 2013 remain open and subject to examinations by the appropriate governmental agencies in the United States and over varying periods in certain of our foreign jurisdictions.