Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Income Taxes

16. Income Taxes

Our effective income tax rate for the three months ended March 31, 2012 was 10.6% as compared to the 3.3% effective income tax rate for the three month period ended March 31, 2011.  The effective income tax rate is less than the 35% statutory tax rate due in large part to the significant tax exempt income as compared to pre-tax results for both periods. The increase in the effective tax rate period to period was primarily due to the change in proportion of tax exempt income and other permanent differences to reported pre-tax loss during the first quarter of 2011 as compared to the proportion of these items to the reported pre-tax income during the first quarter of 2012.