Income Taxes
We elected to be taxed as a REIT under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and the corresponding provisions of state law, commencing with our initial tax year ended December 31, 2008. To continue to qualify as a REIT, we must annually distribute, in a timely manner to our stockholders, at least 90% of our taxable ordinary income, amongst other conditions. A REIT is generally not subject to U.S. Federal and state corporate income tax on its earnings to the extent that it distributes all its annual taxable income to its stockholders and so long as certain asset, income and stock ownership tests are met. We operate in a manner to allow us to be taxed as a REIT.
During December of 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ("TCJA") was signed into law. The TCJA includes sweeping changes to the U.S. tax system starting in fiscal year 2018, including a reduction of the maximum Federal corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% and a lower effective pass-through business income tax rate through the creation of a new deduction for individuals, estates, and trusts of 20 percent of their combined qualified business income amount and REIT ordinary dividend distributions received. Since we typically distribute all our annual taxable income and, as such, do not pay corporate income taxes, we do not expect the TCJA to have a significant impact now or in the future on our consolidated financial statements.
We evaluate uncertain income tax positions, if any, in accordance with ASC Topic 740, Income Taxes ("ASC 740").
Income Taxes
As of December 31, 2017, we have distributed all of our estimated taxable income for fiscal year 2017. Accordingly, we do not expect to incur an income tax liability on our 2017 taxable income. For fiscal years 2016 and 2015, we distributed all of our taxable income within the time limits prescribed by the Internal Revenue Code. Accordingly, we did not incur an income tax liability on our taxable income for such periods.
Based on our analysis of any potential uncertain income tax positions, we concluded that we do not have any uncertain tax positions that meet the recognition or measurement criteria of ASC 740 as of December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015. Our tax returns for tax years 2014 and forward are open to examination by the IRS. If we incur income tax related interest and penalties, our policy is to classify them as a component of provision for income taxes.