Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Sean Babic – SIG.
Sean Babic - SIG
With the tax rate, can we expect that lower rate going forward? The items that you said that went on in the Ireland facility, are those going to be able to be continued?
Fred Lampropoulos
One of the things that we need to do is to make adjustment from time to tome. As you are well aware, each of the taxing entities wants to get their fair share, and there’s this taxing authority and it has to be adjusted. In this quarter, we already adjusted it for several hundred thousand dollars of tax that we paid from where we were a year ago. Greg, do you want to give a little bit further color to that?
Greg Barnett
We’re expecting about a 34% tax rate for the year, so we’ll see. It’ll probably bump back up a little more in the second quarter, and then in the third quarter, we have the FIN48 lapse where it drops down to about 30%, but we’d probably be at 35% to 36% in the second and fourth quarters, but we’re expecting about a 34% tax rate for the year, and if Ireland continues to be more profitable than prior years, we will see a little more improvement in the overall rate.
Fred Lampropoulos
Let me just follow up on that a little bit further. We have several products that are being developed that would be taxed at 10%, so there’s at least an opportunity going forward of several major products that will be major contributors, and so I think we will see a major long-term trend downward on our tax rate because of those high-margin products that are being produced in Ireland. You’ll see some of that yet this year, and you’ll see it continue to progress as more and more of those products are produced there.
Kent Stanger
Yes, I was just going to add basically to what you said that it was part of our basic strategy. It’s part of why we’re in Ireland, not entirely, but I think we have some real opportunities for some of these new proprietary products.
Fred Lampropoulos
We think it’s our patriotic duty to pay a fair tax, but not to pay any more than we need to.
Sean Babic - SIG
On the share buyback, how much of that is left?
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
