A career built on the belief that the useful part of tax work happens before the return is filed.
Julie is a Certified Public Accountant based in Santa Cruz, California. She has led an independent CPA practice for more than thirty-five years, serving individuals and small-business owners across California and all fifty states.
Her career began in the tax departments of national accounting firms, where she built her technical range across taxation and general accounting. That training still shapes the practice today — but the work is done in the setting of an independent firm, where the same person handles the conversation, the planning, the preparation, and the follow-up.
Julie's approach is analytical, direct, and personal. She wants to understand the client's actual situation before the year closes: the business decisions being considered, the income events that already occurred, the payroll or sales-tax obligations being taken on, and the life changes that will eventually shape a return.
Tax preparation is one part of that engagement — the record of what the year became — but rarely the most useful part. The more valuable conversation is usually the one that happened months earlier.
- · Individual & business tax preparation
- · Year-round tax planning
- · Estimated-tax projections
- · Business start-ups & entity questions
- · Estate & succession planning
- · Accounting & bookkeeping oversight
- · Payroll-tax support
- · Sales-tax support
- · IRS & state notice response
- · Multi-state considerations
- · Certified Public Accountant, State of California
- · National-firm tax department experience
- · Continuing tax education completed annually
- · Julie Duda CPA, Inc. — Santa Cruz, California
Long relationships. Direct answers. Careful records.
Many of Julie's clients have been with the firm for two or three decades. That continuity is not incidental to the work — it is the work. Knowing the history of a business, a family, a property portfolio, or a career makes each new conversation faster and more precise.
The firm is intentionally small. Clients speak directly with Julie. Timelines are honored. Returns are filed on schedule. Notices are answered. And when something in the year changes, the client is encouraged to call before, not after.
"As a client of Julie Duda for over twenty years she has put her heart and soul into preparing my taxes so that I may get the best tax advantage possible. Her work ethic is impeccable, she delivers on schedule and is always willing to give advice and answer any questions."