Income Taxes (Tables)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2017

The provision for income taxes consists of the following (dollars in millions):

A reconciliation of the federal statutory rate to the effective income tax rate follows:


	2017			2016			2015
Federal statutory rate		35.0	%		35.0	%		35.0	%
State income taxes, net of federal tax benefit		2.2			2.1			1.6
Change in liability for uncertain tax positions		—			(1.0	)		0.2
Tax benefit from settlements of employee equity awards		(2.0	)		(3.6	)		—
Impact of rate change on deferred tax balances		7.8			—			—
Other items, net		(0.5	)		(0.2	)		0.4

Effective income tax rate on income applicable to HCA Healthcare, Inc.		42.5			32.3			37.2
Income attributable to noncontrolling interests from consolidated partnerships		(5.1	)		(3.6	)		(5.3	)

Effective income tax rate on income before income taxes		37.4	%		28.7	%		31.9	%

A summary of the items comprising the deferred tax assets and liabilities at December 31 follows (dollars in millions):


	2017				2016
	Assets		Liabilities		Assets		Liabilities
Depreciation and fixed asset basis differences	$	—	$	260	$	—	$	235
Allowances for professional liability and other risks		345		—		495		—
Accounts receivable		243		—		351		—
Compensation		263		—		359		—
Other		420		501		794		918

	$	1,271	$	761	$	1,999	$	1,153

The following table summarizes the activity related to our unrecognized tax benefits (dollars in millions):


	2017			2016
Balance at January 1	$	377		$	487
Additions based on tax positions related to the current year		40			11
Additions for tax positions of prior years		11			8
Reductions for tax positions of prior years		(13	)		(18	)
Settlements		—			(101	)
Lapse of applicable statutes of limitations		(16	)		(10	)

Balance at December 31	$	399		$	377