Coralie Cross is a California native, having grown up in the Tri-Valley area of the San Francisco East Bay. She obtained her Certified Public Accountant (CPA) credential in 1984 after changing careers from Forestry to Accounting. Her education includes a Master of Science in Taxation from California State University in Hayward, which was awarded in 1982.
Coralie has been an accountant for nearly forty years. She began with two local firms in Walnut Creek and moved to Arthur Young & Company in San Francisco, then Oakland. She spent another four years as a senior tax supervisor with the San Francisco office of Spicer & Oppenheim, an international accounting firm which was then the fourteenth largest public accounting firm in the United States in 1988, when she established her own firm in Danville, relocating to San Ramon in 2005.
Coralie has extensive experience in trust and estate planning, and emphasizes whole-family planning. In 1992, she was named by Tax Analysts as the only independent CPA practicing in Northern California with significant experience with charitable remainder trusts. In addition to her work with trusts and estates, she also emphasizes real estate and expatriate taxation, executive compensation and relocation issues and other esoteric tax matters.
When two of her clients relocated to Canada in 2004, Coralie had the fortune to connect with a British Columbia Chartered Accounting firm. At that time, her Canada-US specific International tax practice realized a rapid expansion. Her International practice is mostly restricted to US tax work for Canadians with US income, US expatriates and US citizens and permanent residents living in Canada. Clients' tax work is smoothly integrated with her clients' Chartered Accountants via telephone, e-mail and traditional mail.
Her professional memberships include:
• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)
• AICPA Tax Division Membership
• California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CSCPA)
She is active with the CSCPA East Bay Chapter and many of its committees, having chaired the Low Cost Education Committee from 1995 thru 1998 and the Real Estate and Contractors Committee from 1990 thru 1992. In 2007, she participated in an AICPA exam workshop and had seven Trust & Estate questions and four International Tax questions accepted for the national CPA examination.
Coralie has taught technical classes for several CSCPA chapters as well as developing presentations for community groups. Her courses include Equity Sharing, Tax Traps for Real Estate, Real Estate Financing Issues, Estate Planning and Living Trust issues, including utilizing Charitable Remainder Trusts and Life Insurance Trusts to optimize family wealth transfers. She has been a member of the planning committees for the CSCPA Education Division's Estate Planning and Advanced Estate Planning Issues Conferences.
Diablo Magazine has recognized Coralie three times as being one of their Five Star Wealth Managers. She received the Consumer Business Review's award for being the "Certified Public Accountant for the New Millennium - 2000" and has been named by them as C.P.A. of the Year for several other years. After her 2000 award, Coralie has declined additional awards, believing that other accountants should be recognized.
