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DALLAS, March 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Ryan, a leading global tax services firm with the largest indirect tax practice in North America, today announced that the Firm ranked 11th in the Large Company category of the 100 Best Places to Work in Texas awards. Ryan was recognized as one of the best companies to work for in Texas for the second consecutive year, moving up three places over last year's ranking. Ryan was selected after a rigorous two-part evaluation of the Firm's workplace policies, practices, and demographics, combined with a comprehensive employee survey measuring the Firm's work environment, culture, and employee pride and satisfaction.

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The 100 Best Companies to Work for in Texas awards are sponsored by Texas Monthly, Texas Association of Business, Texas State Council of the Society for Human Resource Management, and Best Companies Group. This prestigious annual award was established in 2006 to identify, recognize, and honor the top 100 companies that offer the best places of employment in Texas, thereby benefiting the state's economy, workforce, and business environment.

In August 2008, Ryan launched myRyan, an innovative work environment that changed the measurement of work performance from hours worked to results achieved. The Firm rolled out myRyan as a major culture shift designed to reach even higher levels of client service and employee satisfaction. Since its inception, myRyan has delivered tremendous dividends for the Firm, its clients, and its employees. Ryan has dramatically improved employee retention and satisfaction, while demonstrating solid year-over-year revenue growth. Most importantly, Ryan employees have achieved the highest client satisfaction ratings in the history of the Firm, while enjoying the freedom to meet the competing demands of work and life.

"We are honored and thankful that our employees selected Ryan as one of the best places to work in our home state of Texas," said G. Brint Ryan, CEO and Managing Principal of Ryan. "Our Texas employees, as well as Ryan associates worldwide, are leading our industry into a new era of business productivity built on employee flexibility and freedom."

About Ryan Ryan is an award-winning global tax services firm, with the largest indirect tax practice in North America and the seventh largest corporate tax practice in the United States. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, the Firm provides a comprehensive range of state, local, federal, and international tax advisory and consulting services on a multi-jurisdictional basis, including audit defense, tax recovery, credits and incentives, tax process improvement and automation, tax appeals, tax compliance, and strategic planning. Ryan is a two-time recipient of the International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America (CSIA) for its commitment to world-class client service. Empowered by the dynamic myRyan work environment, which is widely recognized as the most innovative in the tax services industry, Ryan's multi-disciplinary team of more than 925 professionals and associates serves over 6,500 clients in 40 countries, including many of the world's most prominent Global 5000 companies. More information about Ryan can be found at http://www.ryan.com.

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Ryan Ranked 11th Best Company to Work for in Texas.

Staff

1985: Special purpose local option sales tax is created by Georgia Legislature. It gives counties the option to impose a 1-cent sales tax with the money collected from the tax to be used for a list of capital improvement projects, but it must be approved by voters.

FILE/STAFF

Cross Creek High School was the biggest ticket item of Phase I of the special purpose local option sales tax, which was approved by Richmond County voters in 1997. Completed in 1999, the school cost $21.9 million.

File/Staff

The construction of Grovetown Middle School, which was funded by SPLOST money.

FILE/STAFF

Cross Creek High School was the biggest ticket item of Phase I of the special purpose local option sales tax, which was approved by Richmond County voters in 1997. Completed in 1999, the school cost $21.9 million.

FILE/STAFF

The new elementary school on Mullikin Road, seen on February 9, 2005, was funded by school board SPLOST funds.

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A brief history of SPLOST

by By Rebecca Morris Staff Writer Grayson County News Gazette

Leitchfields Freedom Fest will be stressing freedom this year at least for kids.

During a meeting Tuesday, Feb. 28, Leitchfield tourism director Ilsa Johnson said this Julys festival will include rides by a different carnival operator and for kids the rides will be free.

Johnson said this years festival will likely just be one day, and will include fireworks and a performance by the band Sixth Floor.

Also Tuesday, the tourism commission:

Met in closed session to review responses from its request of qualifications for consulting services in connection with a new municipal pool. The commission is seeking bids for a professional architectural and engineering study to get a better feel for actual costs for building the type of pool complex it wants. If those numbers work into the commissions budget, it will then seek bids on designing the complex.

The commission wants to build a minimum six-lane pool, seating for 200 people and aquatic recreational areas for children ages 3-12. Their design specifications also call for separate restroom/lockers/showers facilities for men and women, office and vending space, and a reception area.

The field was narrowed down to a short list of three firms that will be invited to do oral presentations. The names of the firms were not being released at press time.

After those presentations, the committee could select a finalist to contract with.

In 2011 the commission, with the help of the city council, bought 30.55 acres across from the existing Carroll Gibson Boulevard, off Wallace Avenue. Together with the city and the Grayson County School District, it plans on developing a recreational complex on the property that will include a swimming pool, four ball fields, a possible amphitheater, and a cross-country path.

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Freedom Fest to offer free children’s carnival rides

dianne maley From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published Friday, Mar. 02, 2012 5:30PM EST Last updated Friday, Mar. 02, 2012 8:42PM EST

George has the lofty goals and dreams befitting a budding entrepreneur: He wants a business of his own, easy money, and the freedom wealth brings to put up his feet and retire by the time he is 55 with an income of $150,000 a year after tax.

Back down on earth, George is 23, recently graduated from university and has just landed his first real job earning $35,000 a year plus bonus and other benefits. He lives with his mother in a townhouse in the Guelph area that they plan to flip for a $60,000 profit. He wonders how best to use his share of the anticipated gain.

Georges big dream is to open his own wine bar. He aims to save $70,000 over the next 10 years as a down payment and wonders whether that will be enough to enable him to get the financing he will need. To get a leg up given his modest income, he is looking to speculate in real estate.

Since I want to open a wine bar one day, I figured house-flipping was one way to jump-start a savings plan at the beginning of my career, when the money is still tight, he writes in an e-mail. Mind you, that $60,000 profit he and his mother expect has yet to be realized, and theyd need at least half of it as a down payment to buy a bigger, better home.

George also wonders how best to save for retirement a concern that seems premature given the number of events that could come along and turn his plans upside down, marriage being just one. In a few years, when his income is higher, he hopes to buy a house of his own, which will increase his expenses dramatically.

We asked Kurt Rosentreter, a senior financial adviser at Manulife Securities Inc. in Toronto and author of Wealthbuilding, to look at Georges situation.

What the expert says

First, the house. Dont sell it, Mr. Rosentreter says. The land-transfer tax and legal fees erode value. Stay and renovate. As for house-flipping as a way of making money, Be careful. A real estate correction in the future could leave this ending badly for a young guy with not a lot of wiggle room.

George is carrying a credit card balance, a student loan and a car loan. He should make paying these debts off a priority, the planner says.

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Champagne dreams with a chaser of realism

By Kate Hessling Assistant News Editor

UPPER THUMB Local governments are working under a tight deadline to develop a plan to substantiate what they believe are true taxable values for wind turbine developments. At the same time, they are throwing their support behind a special tax State Rep. Kurt E. Damrow has proposed for wind energy developments.

Wind companies pay personal property taxes for wind developments, and the taxable values are established by the Michigan Tax Commission. Those values and, as a result, the amount of personal property taxes wind developers pay counties, local townships, schools and libraries decrease each year because of depreciation. And, per an October ruling by the state commission, there will be a larger than previously established drop in values this year.

The county expects the decreased values will mean a roughly $260,000 loss in revenue from local wind developments this year, said Huron County Commissioner Ron Wruble.

In light of the immediacy of the situation, where counties will lose at least 20 percent of revenue from local wind developments, officials are focusing on proceeding with their own study of true cash valuations rather than waiting to get the information from the FOIA requests, Krause said. He said they have until early March to develop a plan substantiating what values they believe are correct because thats when assessments are presented to townships.

At the same time, TRREC, the Michigan Association of Counties, Michigan Township Association and government officials from other counties experiencing wind development are supporting House Bills 5278 and 5279, which were sponsored by Damrow, R-Port Austin. The bills create a separate category to tax commercial wind developments. Its called the Alternative Commercial Energy Systems (ACES). It previously included commercial wind, biomass and solar electric generating systems, but its been amended to include only wind, Damrow said.

We will work on an agenda for commercial biomass and solar, but right now, time is of the essence (for wind developments), he said.

If lawmakers in Lansing approve the ACES tax, rather than paying personal property taxes, wind developers would make ACES payments. The payments either would be a base fee thats established for each system based on the rated megawatt hours each unit will produce, or $4 per megawatt hour generated for sale.

Damrow said his proposed plan is a county-levied tax with 40 percent of the revenue going to the county general fund, 40 percent to the township general fund and 20 percent divided among the host county public schools.

He said with his plan, a township with 50 commercial 1 to 3 megawatt generator wind turbines would see a minimum payment of $482,000 annually to its general fund, and the same amount would be paid to the county general fund which is much more than the $239,739 that Huron County Treasurer Sherry Learman said was distributed among all the local host townships in 2011. The county received $387,837 last year.

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Officials support proposed tax on turbines