Catharine Dombrowski, CPA, EA, PFS, MST

Catharine has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1988.   Catharine began her career in 1986 at a South Bay regional CPA firm, Ireland & San Filippo (fornerly Ireland & Hayes) where she was the only female CPA in the firm.   Due to the small firm culture, the firm allowed its CPAs, such as Catharine, to manage the client account from its business financial statements through its corporate tax return, as well as the owner's individual tax return(s), which gave each CPA a much broader experience in tax preparation in both business and personal, and allowed each CPA to see the internal processes of the daily life in a small business.

Catharine began her Masters Degree in Taxation at Golden Gate University in 1986, while at Ireland San Filippo, but was recruited by one of her professors to work at Coopers & Lybrand (now called Price Waterhouse Coopers), where she finished her Masters Degree in Taxation.    

While at  Price Waterhouse Coopers,  Catharine broadened her exposure to, and gained experience in, more complicated tax issues such as the Research & Developmental Tax Credit, Consolidated Corporate tax returns, and various partnership tax returns in Oil & Gas, Real Estate and R&D, as well as taxation re software development and software licensing.   Catharine was a supervising specialist towards the end of her two-year experience at PWC.

Catharine moved to KPMG Peat Marwick to broaden her experience in partnership tax law, with specific emphasis in real estate partnerships, as well as real estate tax law in general.  After almost a year at KPMG, Catharine move to the corporate internal tax department of Pacific Bell (a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis), now AT&T (after its merger with Southwestern Bell).

At AT&T (which was Pacific Telesis at the time), Catharine was the Tax Manager of Pacific Bell Directory, the Yellow Page subsidiary of Pacific Bell, where Catharine worked with the legal, finance and accounting departments on issues with a tax impact, managed her staff, developed the monthly tax provision to accrue taxes, and provided the tax impacts to the business plan.   After 4 years, Catharine was promoted to Pacific Telesis, the parent company, to work at the Tax headquarters, where she became the Tax Liaison for the Finance Department's Business Plan cycle reviewing all 40 subsidiary tax return impacts affecting the Business Plan to ensure the plan had the correct tax adjustments for all 40 subsidiaries.  

Catharine also was part of the internal tax team who provided responses to the IRS questions regarding international tax issues affecting the foreign subsidiaries of Pacific Telesis.

Due to Catharine's extensive work on the Business Plan, Catharine was promoted to the coveted District Level position within the Finance Department after only 7 years at Pacific Telesis, where she remained until SBC (Southwestern Bell) acquired Pacific Telesis.    

Catharine was hired by Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) to be one of the four Global Tax Leads of its new Global Tax Department.    At Accenture, Catharine was essentially put on a plane within 7 days of employment to speak at the Finance Departments new hires training in Chicago.   However, Catharine's main job was to develop the tax costs of international jobs being bid out by Accenture partners globally.   If the tax costs were too low, the partner's job profit margin would be eroded, so accuracy was critical.   To obtain accurate job costs on these international projects, Catharine had to work closely with her tax and legal colleagues in Latin America, Europe and Asia.    In addition to job pricing, Catharine also worked closely with Legal to ensure that Accenture's Master Agreements included appropriate language affecting tax impacts for all projects operating under each Master Agreement.   And there was MUCH travel -- all across the world to train Finance managers in other Accenture offices.

After her time at Accenture, and after her father's passing in 2000, Catharine decided to open her own firm in Walnut Creek and Antioch to be closer to her family.  

In 2002, Catharine obtained her IRS Enrolled Agent (EA) license which, although less prestigious than a CPA, is an excellent credential to have when working on an IRS case, since it is an IRS-issued license.

In 2001, Catharine obtained her Mortgage license, and in 2003 became a full mortgage broker, and owns Lone Tree Funding & Mortgage in Antioch.  

In 2004, Catharine obtained her insurance license to sell life insurance, health insurance, specifically Long-Term Care insurance, and annuities.

In 2004 and 2005, Catharine obtained her Series 7 and 66 investment licenses and now works for Genworth Financial.

In 2007, Catharine obtained her PFS (Personal Financial Specialist) credential which is similar to a CFP (Certified Financial Planner).   Catharine is currently working on her CFP license.

Catharine feels strongly that her extensive and diverse background brings a wealth of knowledge to the table from which each of her clients can benefit.   Catharine's extensive knowledge of mortgages has proved invaluable to many of her clients during this foreclosure period.   Catharine's broad knowledge of international tax -- a skill set generally only available to the public by hiring a Big 4 CPA firm such as Price Waterhouse Coopers --- allows her to spot international tax issues that other tax professionals would completely miss -- which in turn, would cause the taxpayer (customer) to have to deal with such issues on their own or pay significant fees to one of the Big 4 CPA firms to work on their tax case.

Catharine specializes in Tax Defense work to assist taxpayers in ensuring their rights are not violated during IRS collection and audit procedures.

Dombrowski & Associates CPAs LLP focuses on client's tax, financial, investment and real estate needs.    Our goal is to be a "one-stop-shop" for our clients, and to be a Trusted Advisor for our client's tax and financial needs.   Our clients are mainly obtained through referrals, but we always welcome new clients.