Question-and-Answer Session
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Sergey Vasnetsov of Lehman Brothers.
Sergey Vasnetsov - Lehman Brothers
Good morning.
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Good morning.
Sergey Vasnetsov - Lehman Brothers
Jim, you mentioned that have active pipeline for acquisitions for the US in merchant business. Can you help us to understand the amount of fire power you have or the likelihood of deals that you see in front of you signing for those?
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
I am sorry, I don't understand the question.
Elizabeth T. Hirsch - Director of Investor Relations
Sergey, do you mean packaged gas acquisition?
Sergey Vasnetsov - Lehman Brothers
Yes, sorry.
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Okay. We'll continue to be looking at packaged gas acquisitions in other places, but we won't put them into the forecast until we'd actually close them.
Sergey Vasnetsov - Lehman Brothers
Okay. And on your taxes, your guidance as of past quarter was say 26% to 28%, so you are still within this range, what's on the high end. What are the factor that drive you to the high tax rate?
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Well, to try to explain it in a nutshell, we have a kind of finite size of deductions, but our taxable income is growing. And so, we're really kind of growing out of those deductions. And so it looks like it will be around 28% for the year and next year as well.
Sergey Vasnetsov - Lehman Brothers
Okay, thank you.
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Okay.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of David Begleiter of Deutsche Bank.
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Thank you. Jim, can you give us the large project backlog, what was added, what was started up in the quarter?
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Yes. We talked about 42 projects in the backlog which were under construction and under contract. That's now moved up to 43, with 6 projects starting up in the first quarter and 7 new contract signings in the beginning of new projects. And I will tell you that the capital in new 7 is double the capital in the 6 that came on stream just because of our larger projects.
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