SEC Company Response from TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC (TXN) (CIK 0000097476) (TXN) — Aug 7, 2006
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC (TXN) (CIK 0000097476)
Date: Aug. 7, 2006 · CIK: 0000097476 · Accession: 0000097476-06-000200
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
File numbers found in text: 001-03761
Referenced dates: July 24, 2006
Show Raw Text
CORRESP
1
filename1.htm
Registrant's Reply to SEC Comment Letter
August
7,
2006
Via
Federal Express
Mr.
Martin F. James
Sr.
Assistant Chief Accountant
U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission
450
Fifth
Street NW
Washington,
DC 20549-0609
Re:
Texas
Instruments Incorporated
Form
10-K
for the Year Ended December 31, 2005
and
related filings
Form
10-Q
for the Quarter Ended March 31, 2006
SEC
File
No. 001-03761
Dear
Mr.
James:
I
am
writing in response to your letter dated July 24, 2006 to Texas Instruments
Incorporated (the "company" or "TI") containing comments on our Form
10-K
for the year ended December 31, 2005, and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended
March 31, 2006. As you will note below, TI has addressed your comments in
its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2006, or will do so in its Form
10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, as appropriate, and intends to
include similar disclosures, revised as appropriate, in filings for relevant
subsequent periods.
Form
10-K for the Year Ended December 31, 2005
Texas
Instruments 2005 Annual Report
Note
1. Description of Business and Significant Accounting Policies and Procedures,
page 11
-Revenue
Recognition, page 12
COMMENT
1:
Please
revise this note in future filings to disclose the rights you grant to your
distributors, such as the rights of return, the rights to price adjustments,
etc. Explain how you are able to reliably estimate the expected events in
order
to establish allowances and recognize revenue upon delivery to the
distributor.
RESPONSE
1:
We will
revise this note as requested in future filings.
In
the
meantime, we offer the explanation below of how we are able to reliably estimate
expected events in order to establish allowances and recognize revenue upon
delivery to the distributor. Please note that the portion of our consolidated
net revenue resulting from sales to distributors historically ranges from
25% to
30%.
We
sell
our products to distributors at standard published prices, although, as you
observe, we have certain programs in which distributors may participate at
our
discretion. Revenue is recorded at the time of shipment to distributors net
of
estimated allowances for each of these programs. At the time of shipment,
title
transfers to the distributor and payment from the distributor is due on our
standard commercial terms; payment terms are not contingent upon the
distributor’s resale of the product. A brief description of each program and our
method of estimating the related allowance follows:
·
Price
adjustment credits for certain resales: Under this program, we
may grant a distributor price adjustment credits up to an agreed
quantity
for specific resales of TI products to a specific end customer. In
order
to receive price adjustment credits, the distributor must provide
details
regarding the specific price competition they are facing, including
the
product, the end customer, the competitor offering the competitive
pricing, the forecasted quantity of product subject to the competitive
pricing, and the price requested. To estimate allowances for these
price
adjustment credits, we use statistical percentages of revenue, determined
quarterly based upon recent historical claim trends. We record these
allowances as a reduction to revenue when the products are shipped.
Approved allowances are tracked individually by distributor, part
number
and quantity.
·
Scrap
allowance: Under this program, distributors can reduce their
slow-moving or obsolete inventory and receive a credit from us for
that
inventory. To estimate allowances for scrap, we use a negotiated
fixed
percentage of purchases for each distributor. We record these allowances
as a reduction to revenue when the products are shipped. For the
most
part, allowances occur on a quarterly
basis.
·
Price
protection: Under this program, if we post a new standard published
price
for a TI product that is below the price paid by a distributor for
the
same product in distributor on-hand inventory, we may credit the
distributor for the difference between those prices. The estimated
allowance recorded for this program is determined by the identified
product price difference rather than on a statistical
basis.
We
believe we can reasonably and reliably estimate allowances for these programs
in
a timely manner because:
·
Historical
claims data are maintained for each of the programs, with differences
among geographic regions taken into consideration.
·
We
continually monitor the actual claimed allowances against our estimates,
and we adjust our estimate as appropriate to reflect trends in distributor
revenue and inventory levels. Allowances are also adjusted when
recent historical data does not represent anticipated future
activity.
·
We
have long-term relationships with our distributors, which provide
a
reasonable basis for our estimates (more than three-fourths of our
distributor revenue comes from distributors with which we have had
a
relationship for more than five years).
COMMENT
2:
We note
that you may grant adjustments to your distributors in specific competitive
situations that are applied to their accounts, but do not change the pricing
to
these distributors.
·
Please
tell us and revise your future filings to explain the nature of the
adjustments made to your distributors’ accounts and how you account for
these adjustments.
·
Explain
to us how these adjustments do not change your pricing to the
distributors.
·
Cite
the accounting guidance relied upon and how you applied this guidance
to
your specific situation. Refer to SAB Topic 13 and EITF
01-09.
RESPONSE
2: As
noted
in our response to comment 1 above, we sell our products to distributors
at
standard published prices. Distributors are required to pay for the products
within our standard commercial terms, which are generally 30 days. At our
discretion, we may make exceptions to the standard published rates in the
form
of price adjustment credits for distributor resales in certain circumstances.
To
qualify for the price adjustment credits, the distributor must provide details
regarding the specific price competition they are facing, including the product,
the end customer, the competitor offering the competitive pricing, the
forecasted quantity of product subject to the competitive pricing, and the
price
requested. These requests from the distributor must be made prior to
shipment to the end customer. Only after the product is shipped to the end
customer may the distributor claim the price adjustment credits. An
approved price adjustment credit is valid for a fixed period, typically 90
days.
The
price
adjustment credits do not result in a change in the standard published
price list under which the majority of products are sold to
distributors.
The
price
adjustment credits are accounted for as a reduction of
revenue.
To
account for these price adjustment credits, we consider the guidance of Staff
Accounting Bulletin (SAB) Topic 13A, which requires that the seller’s price to
the buyer be fixed or determinable as a criterion for revenue recognition.
Footnote 5 to SAB Topic 13A states that “paragraphs 26-33 of [Statement of
Position (SOP)] SOP 97-2 [Software
Revenue Recognition]
discuss
how to apply the ‘fixed or determinable’ fee criterion in software transactions.
The [SEC] staff believes that the guidance in paragraphs 26 and 30-33 is
appropriate for other sales transactions where authoritative guidance does
not
otherwise exist.”
Paragraph
30 of SOP 97-2 identifies factors that should be considered in evaluating
the
fixed or determinable fee criterion in connection with reseller (i.e.,
distributor) arrangements. Some of the relevant considerations with respect
to
our distributor programs are:
·
There
have been no historical business practices, informal communications,
competitive pressures, or payment patterns indicating that payment
is
substantially contingent on the distributors’ resale of the
product.
·
Our
distributors are generally large global or regional companies that
are not
undercapitalized and sell products from a wide range of
manufacturers.
·
There
is no general right of return. Distributors are compensated for damaged
or
obsolete products according to the scrap allowance program described
above.
We
also
consider the guidance of Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF) Issue No. 01-9,
“Accounting
for Consideration Given by a Vendor to a Customer (Including a Reseller of
the
Vendor's Products)”
-
particularly Issues 1, 4 and 6. Price adjustment credits given to
distributors (through the issuance of credit memos or credits on future
purchases) are recorded as a reduction of our product revenue as of the date
at
which the related revenue is recognized.
We
have
determined that we are able to make timely and reliable estimates of pricing
allowances as demonstrated in our response to comment 1 above. Additionally,
we
believe we have appropriate internal controls and adequate books and records
that will allow us to timely identify issues that may necessitate changes
in
estimates. Therefore, we have concluded that prices are fixed or
determinable on the date the shipments are made and pricing allowances are
recorded based on our ability to make timely and reliable estimates of the
allowances to be processed under the distributor programs.
We
will
revise this note as requested in future filings.
Management’s
Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition, page 45
-2005
Compared with 2004 - Detail of Financial Results, page 48
COMMENT
3:
We note
that you present a 2005 effective tax rate excluding discrete tax items.
In
future filings, when presenting similar non-GAAP measures, please provide
all
the disclosures required by Item 10(c) of Regulation S-K and comply fully
with
the guidance provided in the Division of Corporation Finance Frequently Asked
Questions Regarding the Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures. Otherwise, revise
future filings to only present an effective rate based on your GAAP results
and
discuss the special or discrete tax events reflected in that rate.
RESPONSE
3:
We are
cognizant of the requirements of Item 10(e) of Regulation S-K and intend
to
comply fully with the guidance provided in the Division of Corporation Finance
Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures.
However, in this case we respectfully disagree with the SEC staff’s
interpretation of this presentation as a non-GAAP measure. We do concede
that
the language we used may have caused confusion.
The
language we used implied that the effective tax rate includes discrete items:
“…excluding the effect of the discrete tax items, the effective tax rate for
2005 was 25 percent." What was intended was a discussion of the effective
tax
rate, which, by definition, excludes the effect of discrete tax items. A
better
worded disclosure would have been, “The effective tax rate for 2005, which, by
definition, does not include discrete tax items, was 25 percent,” or “The
effective tax rate for 2005, which, by definition, does not include taxes
related to significant unusual or extraordinary items, was 25
percent.”
Accounting
Principles Board (APB) Opinion No. 28, “
Interim Financial Reporting”
(Para
19), requires that companies calculate their interim period income taxes
based
on an estimate of the annual effective tax rate applied to “ordinary” income.
Specifically, the guidance in paragraph 19 is to exclude from the estimated
annual effective tax rate calculation taxes related to “significant unusual or
extraordinary items that will be separately reported or reported net of their
related tax effect.” FASB Interpretation 18, “Accounting
for Income Taxes in Interim Periods - An Interpretation of APB Opinion No.
28”
(Para
16), reinforces this point by requiring those items that do not affect the
estimated annual effective tax rate calculation be recognized in the interim
period in which they occur. We believe that this guidance supports our position
that taxes (or benefits) that do not relate to "ordinary income" in the current
year generally should be accounted for discretely in the period in which
they
occur and be excluded from the effective tax rate calculation.
Form
10-Q for the Quarter Ended March 31, 2006
Note
1. Description of Business and Significant Accounting Policies and Practices,
page 8
COMMENT
4:
We note
that you disclose that you recorded a charge of $5 million of in-process
R&D
expenses based on the results of a third-party appraisal. Please note that
if in
future periods you intend to incorporate your For