13. Income Taxes

The provision for income tax expense (benefit) consists of the following:

A reconciliation of the statutory federal income tax rate to the Company’s effective income tax rate is as follows:

Deferred income taxes reflect the impact of “temporary differences” between asset and liability amounts for financial reporting purposes and such amounts as determined based on existing tax laws. The tax effect of temporary differences and carryforwards which give rise to deferred tax assets and liabilities are as follows:

The Company has state tax net operating losses of $101.5 million which expire at various times between 2015 and 2035, and foreign losses of $1.0 million, which do not expire. Pursuant to authoritative guidance, the benefit of stock options will only be recorded to stockholders’ equity when cash taxes payable are reduced.

The Company has state income tax credits of $3.6 million, which expire at various times beginning in 2015 through 2031. In evaluating the Company’s ability to recover its deferred tax assets, the Company considers all available positive and negative evidence including past operating results, future taxable income, and ongoing prudent and feasible tax planning strategies in assessing the need for a valuation allowance against any deferred tax assets. The Company has determined there will be insufficient future separate state taxable income for the separate parent company to realize its deferred tax assets. Therefore, valuation allowances of $6.2 million and $6.2 million (net of federal impact) at September 26, 2015 and September 27, 2014, respectively, have been provided to reduce state deferred tax assets to amounts considered recoverable.

The Company classifies uncertain tax positions as non-current income tax liabilities unless expected to be paid within one year. The Company recognizes interest and/or penalties related to income tax matters as a component of pretax income. As of September 26, 2015 and September 27, 2014, accrued interest was less than $0.1 million and no penalties were accrued related to uncertain tax positions.

The following table, which excludes interest and penalties, summarizes the activity related to the Company’s unrecognized tax benefits for fiscal years ended September 26, 2015 and September 27, 2014 (in thousands):

As of September 26, 2015, unrecognized income tax benefits totaled approximately $0.1 million and all of the unrecognized tax benefits would, if recognized, impact the Company’s effective income tax rate.

The Company is principally subject to taxation by the United States and various states within the United States. The Company’s tax filings in major jurisdictions are open to examination by tax authorities by the Internal Revenue Service from fiscal year ended 2012 forward and in various state taxing authorities generally from fiscal year ended 2011 forward.

The Company does not believe there will be any significant change in its unrecognized tax benefits within the next twelve months.