Partners Profile

Dr.Patrick R. Colabella CPA Ed.D Dr. Colabella is the managing partner of Colabella & Company LLP he also has been a member of the St John’s University faculty since 1987. He attained his undergraduate degree and his doctorate in instructional leadership at St. John’s University and holds an MBA in taxation from Pace University. He began his teaching career at CW Post University by training US Army cadre on basic taxation at the West Point facility. He has been a licensed, practicing Certified Public Accountant since 1973 in the State of New York. Dr. Colabella’s 2008 doctoral dissertation “The Effect of Public School Districts’ Property Values on State Educational Funds,” centered on the negative impact of assessed property valuations, property taxes and local district school budgeting. He has authored numerous news articles on tax reform and scholarly papers in peer-reviewed journals, on various matters in taxation and accounting, among them “The CPA Journal” and “Bank Accounting & Finance”. He has made numerous presentations before the American Accounting Association on forensic accounting and has recently been included in international scholarly forums in Poland on the shadow economy. In South Korea he was a featured presenter of his “Withdrawals Tax System” to the Korean Institute on Taxation. In national and regional forums, he has presented scholarly papers on the underground economy, academic accounting matters concerning the five year accounting program, and the development of accounting principles, and ethics. He is a recognized expert and advocate of fundamental tax reform. He has made presentations before congressional committees on taxation reform in Washington DC and has contributed to the President's Tax Consultative Task Force in 2004. His body of work in tax reform extends to the governments of South Korea and Australia. He has appeared on numerous News programs and spent two weeks as a CBS Tax Tips expert. He annually participates in the Daily News tax call-in forum during tax season. He obtained his accounting tax and audit experience at Deloitte, Plender, Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte). He was later the Director of Taxes of the Equitable Life Assurance Society’s Holding Corporation and he is the managing partner emeritus of Colabella & Company, LLP which he founded in 1974. His firm is a member of the AICPA, Private Companies Practice Section and the NYSSCPAs. The firm is active in all phases of accounting, auditing, taxation, management advisory services, litigation support and consulting services. He is also qualified to perform firm on firm peer reviews under the AIPCA Practice Monitoring Program and he is a qualified Business Valuation Analyst recognized by the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts. He currently heads the Global Institute for Taxation GIFT at St. John’s University which engages students and scholars in research of public finance and taxation issues. GIFT was established in 1999 and has a distinguished advisory board consisting of representatives from international accounting firms, major banking institutions and noted scholars from USC Stanford and NYU Law School. The institute is endorsed by several Washington think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute, the Tax Institute, IRET, and the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. The institute is currently working on the societal automation of tax collection. Dr. Colabella has several notable non academic achievements. He has been recognized by Beta Alpha Psi as an outstanding faculty advisor and he was the recipient of the PricewaterhouseCoopers “Excellence in Education Award”. He has received teacher of the year honors on three separate occasions on both the Staten Island and Jamaica campus. He has been nominated six times. He occasionally ventures into acting roles and singing engagements. He is a member of the St Bernadette’s Choir. He is an avid car enthusiast who restores classic cars and is a qualified Bush Grand National auto racer and a member of the Sports Car Club of America.