Born in Madison, Wisconsin and raised in Riverside, California, Julie A. Cardin, the daughter of an attorney, has served clients for more than 20 years with special compassion and a rare skillset that includes law, tax preparation, and public accounting.
Career
As an attorney and CPA, she’s proven to be an effective advocate for those facing audits by the Internal Revenue Service and California tax agencies. Her experience as a field auditor for the IRS has only further expanded her knowledge and skill.
At the IRS, Cardin learned to comb tax returns for anomalies, discrepancies, abnormalities, overstated expenses and understated income – learning all the while how to prepare returns for clients so as not to raise red flags in the first place. She also learned what IRS agents need in order to resolve a case and just how much room the law affords taxpayers to negotiate.
She so impressed the IRS that they sent her out, at age 25, to lecture large gatherings of agents, CPAs and attorneys on the proper preparation of tax returns.
Education
Ms. Cardin earned a bachelor’s of science degree in accounting from the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona and went on to work for Certified Public Accountants in San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties. Finding that accounting was not enough to occupy her restless intelligence, and still holding a day job, she enrolled in law school.
National University, which later was absorbed into the Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, awarded her a scholarship. She passed the California Bar exam on her first try in 1990. Her law school brought her back to teach courses in taxation, community property, and professional skills.
Cardin is a member of San Diego’s North County Bar Association. A CPA in California since 1992, she also became licensed in 2005 as a Certified Public Accountant in Nevada.