Note 16. Income Taxes

The components of income tax expense were as follows (in thousands):

	Year Ended December 31,
	2011		2010		2009
Current	$	1,016	$	18	$	242
Deferred..		5,025		1,082		(56	)
	$	6,041	$	1,100	$	186

Income tax expense differs from the amount computed by applying the statutory federal income tax rate to income before income taxes as follows (in thousands):

	Year Ended December 31,
	2011			2010			2009
Provision at U.S. statutory rate	$	5,335		$	947		$	365
State taxes, net of federal benefit		567			119			119
Permanent differences, primarily meals and entertainment		266			213			171
Merger expenses and true up of merger treatment		-			135			14
Accrual of IRS examination issues		-			-			104
Tax credits		(127	)		(214	)		-
Increase to deferred tax asset tax rate		-			-			313
Release of valuation allowance		-			(100	)		(900	)
	$	6,041		$	1,100		$	186

Significant components of our deferred tax assets and liabilities were as follows (in thousands):

	December 31,
	2011			2010
Deferred tax assets
Net operating losses and alternative minimum tax credit carryforwards	$	2,059		$	8,310
Accrued salaries and severance		975			828
Other		766			822
		3,800			9,960
Valuation allowance		-			-
		3,800			9,960
Deferred tax liabilities
Property, equipment and leasehold improvements		(11,369	)		(11,462	)
Intangible assets		(6,450	)		(6,539	)
Equity investments		(251	)		(1,093	)
Other		(46	)		(52	)
		(18,116	)		(19,146	)
	$	(14,316	)	$	(9,186	)

As of December 31, 2011, included in our net operating losses and alternative minimum tax credit carryforwards of $2.1 million are: i) federal net operating loss carryforwards (“NOLs”) totaling $4.5 million, or $1.5 million tax-effected; ii) state NOLs totaling $129,000 tax-effected; and iii) federal and state alternative minimum tax credit carryforwards totaling $726,000 tax-effected. Included in these net operating losses are: iv) tax deductions related to stock option exercises of $1.0 million, or $342,000 tax-effected, for which the tax benefit will be credited to equity when realized.

Among other factors, in assessing the realizability of our deferred tax assets, we consider future taxable income expected to be generated by the projected differences between financial statement depreciation and tax depreciation, cumulative earnings generated to date and other evidence available to us. Based upon this consideration, we assessed that all of our deferred taxes are more likely than not to be realized, and, as such, we have not recorded a valuation allowance as of December 31, 2011 or 2010. During 2010, we released our remaining valuation allowance of $100,000 and, during 2009, we released $900,000 of valuation allowance, all of which was recorded as an offset to our tax provision.

There were no unrecognized tax benefits as of December 31, 2011 or 2010 and we do not anticipate significant changes to our unrecognized tax benefits within the next twelve months.

Our major tax jurisdictions include U.S. federal and various U.S. states. Tax years that remain open for examination by the IRS include the years from 2007 through 2011. Tax years remaining open in states where we have a significant presence range from 2007 to 2011. In addition, tax years from 1997 to 2003 may be subject to examination by the IRS and state tax jurisdictions to the extent that we utilize these NOLs in our tax returns.