JPMorgan quarterly profit falls 7.6 percent on tax expense

JPMorgan Chase & Co , the biggest U.S. bank by assets, reported a 7.6 percent drop in quarterly profit after recording a tax expense, compared with a rare tax benefit a year earlier.

The bank's net income fell to $6.29 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30 from $6.80 billion in the same quarter of 2015. Earnings per share fell to $1.58 from $1.68.

The year-earlier net profit was boosted by a tax benefit of $2.2 billion.

On a pre-tax basis, profit rose 32.8 percent to $8.94 billion, helped by a drop in non-interest expenses and a slight increase in revenue following the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike last December, the first since the financial crisis.

Analysts on average had expected earnings of $1.39 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It was not immediately clear if the reported figures were comparable.

JPMorgan is the first big U.S. bank to report third-quarter results. Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup Inc , the third and fourth-biggest U.S. banks by assets, are scheduled to report later on Friday. Bank of America Corp , the second biggest, will report on Monday.

(Reporting by Sweta Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Ted Kerr)