Income Taxes

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2013

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

INCOME TAXES

INCOME TAXES

The following table sets out the tax expense and the effective tax rate for our income from continuing operations (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2013			2012
Income from continuing operations before income taxes	$	7,516		$	1,034
Provision for income taxes	690			268
Effective tax rate	9.2		%	25.9		%

Our tax rate is lower than the U.S. federal income tax rate primarily due to the benefit of earnings in foreign jurisdictions which are subject to lower tax rates. In addition, during the three months ended March 31, 2013, we recognized a discrete tax benefit of $1.4 million related to the January 2, 2013 reinstatement of the 2012 U.S. research and development tax credit.

Undistributed earnings of foreign subsidiaries are considered to be permanently reinvested and accordingly, no provision for U.S. federal and state income taxes or foreign withholding taxes has been made.

Our policy is to classify accrued penalties and interest related to unrecognized tax benefits in our income tax provision. For the three months ended March 31, 2013 and 2012, the amount of interest and penalties accrued related to our unrecognized tax benefits was not significant.