Income Taxes Income Taxes

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2015

Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]

Income Tax Disclosure

Note 3. Income Taxes

We evaluate our estimated annual effective income tax rate based on current and forecasted business results and enacted tax laws on a quarterly basis and apply this tax rate to our ordinary income or loss to calculate our estimated tax liability or benefit. As of June 30, 2015, we had $37.0 million of deferred tax assets associated with State of Louisiana net operating losses. As the result of a new tax law enacted in the State of Louisiana effective June 30, 2015, which limits a company's utilization of certain deductions, including our net operating loss carryforwards, we recognized a tax valuation allowance of $30.5 million to reduce the carrying value of our deferred tax assets. The valuation allowances will remain until the realization of future deferred tax benefits are more likely than not to become utilized. Our effective tax rate for the three and six months ended June 30, 2015, was lower than our estimated statutory rate, primarily due to the impact of the tax valuation allowance discussed above, which reduced the net deferred tax benefit recognized.