Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jim Lucas with Janney Montgomery Scott. Please proceed.
James Lucas - Janney Montgomery Scott
Thanks. Good morning. And I am glad I got out Minneapolis on Tuesday.
Michael J. Hoffman - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Jim.
James Lucas - Janney Montgomery Scott
Your products were definitely being used around town. Couple of questions here. Steve, first off, can you... with international becoming a bigger percentage of revenue, why is the tax rate going up?
Stephen P. Wolfe - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Couple of things on the tax rate piece, and actually for the fourth quarter it had a little bit of the opposite effect. When you look at the 47% last year?
James Lucas - Janney Montgomery Scott
Right.
Stephen P. Wolfe - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
We had a valuation adjustment we had to make on a long-term tax asset that we were holding that we deemed to be uncollectible. So we had to write that off and therefore our tax benefit went down, so the rate in the fourth quarter went up. So that was kind of an abnormal transaction but that... we had to do that to get the full year rate back to where it needed to be.
The lower rate this year has to do with the currency and the fact that the currency had increased so much in our foreign countries that we had a higher percent of our income from the international side, where we are... have lower tax jurisdictions. So that's the reason that it's down for the fourth quarter of this year. And then as we go into '08, you are back to the foreign investment credit phasing out and the manufacturing... domestic manufacturing credit phasing in, and that's less beneficial to us than the old one. So, this year we're going to have a higher tax rate for '08. So, each one of those kind of has their own thing tied to it, and in what drove it.
James Lucas - Janney Montgomery Scott
Now from a tax planning perspective, is there... are there going to be any opportunities throughout the year to potentially bring that down or is... are you pretty much locked into this tax rate?
Stephen P. Wolfe - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
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