1. Basis of Presentation:
The accompanying Consolidated Financial Statements and footnotes of the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM or the company) have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (GAAP). The financial statements and footnotes are unaudited. In the opinion of the company’s management, these statements include all adjustments, which are only of a normal recurring nature, necessary to present a fair statement of the company’s results of operations, financial position and cash flows.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amount of assets, liabilities, revenue, costs, expenses and other comprehensive income/(loss) that are reported in the Consolidated Financial Statements and accompanying disclosures. These estimates are based on management’s best knowledge of current events, historical experience, actions that the company may undertake in the future and on various other assumptions that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances. As a result, actual results may be different from these estimates.
In the first quarter of 2020, the company realigned offerings and the related management system to reflect divestitures completed in the second half of 2019 and tighter integration of certain industry-related consulting services. These changes impacted a few of the company’s reportable segments, but did not impact the Consolidated Financial Statements. Refer to note 4, “Segments,” for additional information on the company’s reportable segments. The periods presented in this Form 10-Q are reported on a comparable basis. On April 6, 2020, Arvind Krishna became Chief Executive Officer of IBM and announced a number of management changes which did not impact the company’s reportable segments.
For the three months ended June 30, 2020, the company reported a provision for income taxes of $209 million. For the six months ended June 30, 2020, the company reported a benefit from income taxes of $1,017 million. The tax benefit was primarily related to the tax impacts of an intra-entity sale of certain of the company’s intellectual property in the first quarter, which required the recognition of a $3,442 million deferred tax asset. The recognition of this deferred tax asset and the related impacts resulted in a net one-time benefit in the first quarter of $939 million. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, the company reported a provision for income taxes of $269 million and $558 million, respectively.
On July 9, 2019, the company completed the acquisition of all of the outstanding shares of Red Hat, Inc. (Red Hat). Refer to note 5, “Acquisitions & Divestitures,” and note 10, “Intangible Assets Including Goodwill,” for additional information.
Noncontrolling interest amounts of $6.8 million and $4.9 million, net of tax, for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, respectively, and $11.3 million and $11.9 million, net of tax, for the six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, respectively, are included as a reduction within other (income) and expense in the Consolidated Income Statement.
Interim results are not necessarily indicative of financial results for a full year. The information included in this Form 10-Q should be read in conjunction with the company’s 2019 Annual Report.
Within the financial statements and tables presented, certain columns and rows may not add due to the use of rounded numbers for disclosure purposes. Percentages presented are calculated from the underlying whole-dollar amounts. Certain prior period amounts have been reclassified to conform to the current period presentation. Specifically, beginning in the third-quarter 2019, revenues and related costs for post-contract support provided for perpetual (one-time charge) software licenses have been reclassified from Services Revenue to Sales Revenue and Services Cost to Sales Cost within the Consolidated Income Statement. The revenue and cost amounts reclassified were $0.5 billion and $0.1 billion, respectively, for the three months ended June 30, 2019. The revenue and cost amounts reclassified were $1.0 billion and $0.2 billion, respectively, for the six months ended June 30, 2019. This reclassification had no impact on total revenue, total cost, net income, financial position or cash flows for any periods presented. Other immaterial reclassifications have been annotated where applicable.