General (Policies)

3 Months Ended

Nov. 19, 2016

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Fiscal Period

Operating results for the twelve weeks ended November 19, 2016, are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the fiscal year ending August 26, 2017. Each of the first three quarters of AutoZone’s fiscal year consists of 12 weeks, and the fourth quarter consists of 16 or 17 weeks. The fourth quarters for fiscal 2017 and 2016 each have 16 weeks. Additionally, the Company’s business is somewhat seasonal in nature, with the highest sales generally occurring during the months of February through September and the lowest sales generally occurring in the months of December and January.

Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements

Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements: In March 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued Accounting Standard Update (“ASU”) 2016-09, Compensation – Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvement to Employee Share-based Payment Accounting. ASU 2016-09 simplifies several aspects of accounting for share-based payments transactions, including income tax consequences, classification of awards as either equity or liabilities and classification on the statement of cash flows. The Company adopted this standard on August 28, 2016. The Company has applied the amendment requiring recognition of excess tax deficiencies and tax benefits in the income statement prospectively. The adoption of the new standard increased earnings per share for the twelve week period ended November 19, 2016 by $0.03, driven by a lower effective tax rate of 74 basis points (an $0.11 benefit to earnings per share), partially offset by a change to the dilutive outstanding shares calculation (an $0.08 reduction to earnings per share). The Company has applied the amendment relating to the presentation of the excess tax benefits on the Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows retrospectively, resulting in the reclassification of $23.5 million of excess tax benefits from cash flows from financing activities to cash flows from operating activities for the twelve weeks ended November 21, 2015. The Company will continue to estimate forfeitures of share-based awards.

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements: In October 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-16, Income Taxes (Topic 740): Intra-Entity Transfers of Assets Other than Inventory. ASU 2016-16 requires that an entity recognize the income tax consequences of an intra-entity transfer of assets other than inventory when the transfer occurs. The guidance must be applied using the modified retrospective basis. The Company does not expect the provisions of ASU 2016-16 to have a material impact on its financial statements. This update will be effective for the Company at the beginning of fiscal 2019.