Financial Information
6. INCOME TAXES
The components of our earnings before income taxes for the last three fiscal years consisted of:
Our provision for income taxes for the last three fiscal years consists of:
Our current tax provision does not reflect the following benefits attributable to us for the vesting or exercise of employee share-based awards: $89 million in 2014, $66 million in 2013, and $76 million in 2012. The preceding table includes tax credits of $4 million in 2014, $3 million in 2013, and $3 million in 2012. We had a tax provision applicable to other comprehensive income of $5 million in 2014, $2 million in 2013, and $5 million in 2012.
We have made no provision for U.S. income taxes or additional non-U.S. taxes on the cumulative unremitted earnings of non-U.S. subsidiaries ($894 million as of year-end 2014). We consider the earnings for substantially all non-U.S. subsidiaries to be indefinitely reinvested. These earnings could become subject to additional taxes if the non-U.S. subsidiaries dividend or loan those earnings to us or to a U.S. affiliate or if we sell our interests in the non-U.S. subsidiaries. We cannot practically estimate the amount of additional taxes that might be payable on the unremitted earnings.
Unrecognized Tax Benefits
The following table reconciles our unrecognized tax benefit balance for each year from the beginning of 2012 to the end of 2014:
These unrecognized tax benefits reflect the following year-over-year changes: (1) a $24 million decrease in 2014, largely attributable to the favorable settlements reached with taxing authorities on both federal and international positions taken in prior years; (2) a $5 million increase in 2013, primarily due to a U.S. federal tax issue, offset by a settlement with international taxing authorities; and (3) $10 million decrease in 2012, primarily reflecting the changes attributable to settlements with taxing authorities and positions taken during 2012.
Our unrecognized tax benefit balances included $7 million at year-end 2014, $12 million at year-end 2013, and $13 million at year-end 2012 of tax positions that, if recognized, would impact our effective tax rate.
The IRS has examined our federal income tax returns, and we have settled all issues for tax years through 2009. We participate in the IRS Compliance Assurance Program, which accelerates IRS examination of key transactions with the goal of resolving any issues before the taxpayer files its return. As a result, the audits of our open tax years 2010 through 2013 are complete, while the 2014 tax year audit is currently ongoing. Various foreign, state, and local income tax returns are also under examination by the applicable taxing authorities. It is reasonably possible that we will resolve two state apportionment issues during the next 12 months for which we have an unrecognized tax balance of $4 million. One issue is currently under audit, and the second issue is pending an expected court ruling in 2015. The unrecognized tax balance of $4 million is partly offset by a related deferred tax asset.
Deferred Income Taxes
Deferred income tax balances reflect the effects of temporary differences between the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities and their tax bases, as well as from net operating loss and tax credit carry-forwards. We state those balances at the enacted tax rates we expect will be in effect when we actually pay or recover the taxes. Deferred income tax assets represent amounts available to reduce income taxes we will pay on taxable income in future years. We evaluate our ability to realize these future tax deductions and credits by assessing whether we expect to have sufficient future taxable income from all sources, including reversal of taxable temporary differences, forecasted operating earnings, and available tax planning strategies to utilize these future deductions and credits. We establish a valuation allowance when we no longer consider it more likely than not that a deferred tax asset will be realized.
We had the following total deferred tax assets and liabilities at year-end 2014 and year-end 2013:
The following table details the composition of our net deferred tax balances at year-end 2014 and year-end 2013:
The following table presents the tax effect of each type of temporary difference and carry-forward that gave rise to a significant portion of our deferred tax assets and liabilities as of year-end 2014 and year-end 2013:
At year-end 2014, we had approximately $28 million of tax credits that expire through 2024 and $153 million of tax credits that do not expire. We recorded $10 million of net operating loss benefits in 2014 and $14 million in 2013. At year-end 2014, we had approximately $1.2 billion of primarily state and foreign net operating losses, of which $561 million expire through 2034.
Reconciliation of U.S. Federal Statutory Income Tax Rate to Actual Income Tax Rate
The following table reconciles the U.S. statutory tax rate to our effective income tax rate for the last three fiscal years:
We paid cash for income taxes, net of refunds of $172 million in 2014 and $77 million in 2013, and we received $17 million of cash for income tax refunds, net of payments in 2012.