About Us
Retail Tax Solutions was spun off from Gulfstream Tax Group after a large growth of multi locational retail clients were seeking help with their personal property return filings. Gulfstream Tax Group was formed in year 2000 by some former Ernst & Young alumni. This growth in our retail clients continued and this soon turned in to assistance with national business license management since we were tracking openings and closings of locations anyway. Since our client’s A/P departments bottlenecked with seasonal personal property tax and licensing bills, at their request, we started assistance with the payment of tax bills. We also knew that due to national exposure Sales & Use tax audits assistance was needed. This was when we decided to spin off Retail Tax Solutions. This growth was achieved with a lot of hard work and building trust. Clients don’t request additional services unless they trust you and see that your fighting for them.
Leadership
Our business model is a senior advisor-focused approach. Staff works for our partners and the partners work for you. We have assisted tax leaders of some of the largest Corporations in America with indirect tax issues and problem solving.
Steve is one of the co-founders of Gulfstream Tax Group and therefore is now also a co-founder and General Director of RTS. He is an Ernst & Young Alumni and has been in the property tax industry since 1982. Steve has a background in all aspects of real estate and personal property tax issues.
The success of his company is due to his capacity to pay close interest to a company’s corporate culture and identify all areas of tax savings potential. Being the best is a direct result of understanding the need for personalized attention to each client and customizing a unique tax program to fit the needs of each client. Steven W. Sattizahn received a Bachelor in Business Administration from the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. He is co-founder and ex-President of the Florida Association of Property Tax Professionals. Steve has been active in lobbying on legislative issues concerning property taxes throughout his career. He is a member of IAAO, FUTMA and has taken all classes through IPT.
Maria is an Ernst & Young alumni with a Masters in Professional Accounting from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin in 1996 and her Certificate of Public Accountancy from the State of Texas in 1999.
Her studies concentrated in taxation and cost accounting. María received her B.A. in Economics and her B.A. in Spanish from Rollins College in 1991. She has broad responsibilities at RTS, in addition to managing our business licensing and Sales & Use staff and sales tax consultants.
Ralph is a PricewaterhouseCoopers Alumni and has a background including being a former tax-law specialist in the general counsel’s office of the Florida Department of Revenue. He is a frequent lecturer at sales and use tax seminars and is a state tax practice insight author for the Lexis/Nexis legal research system.
His responsibilities include representation before state revenue agencies related to various issues. Those issues include sales tax audit defense; voluntary disclosures; negotiation and settlement of state tax, penalty and interest liability; drafting and handling tax ruling requests; identifying state tax overpayments and preparing and filing tax refund claims; general state tax research and consulting; multi-state tax nexus studies; identifying and implementing strategic state tax planning opportunities; sales tax due diligence reviews; and preparation for and assistance in state tax litigation. Ralph also directly manages our audit team. General Counsel’s Office of the Florida Department of Revenue
Joni is a PricewaterhouseCoopers Alumni and served on their National Sales & Use Team. She later became Director of Sale & Use for a large national multi – state company. She is known for thinking outside of the box and leads our compliance team.