# Tax Prep Desk

> A tax-season desk for US small-business owners: one ledger export in; a books check, a 1099-NEC prep list and a quarterly estimated-tax summary out, for the owner's accountant. Prep material, not tax advice. Nothing is filed.

URL: https://tax-prep-desk.skillsafe.ai/
API tutorial: https://tax-prep-desk.skillsafe.ai/api.html
Model: gpt-terra (metered; the browser prescan is free)
Derived from: @anthropics/tax-season-organizer (primary) and @anthropics/tax-prep, anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins, Apache-2.0 (https://skillsafe.ai/skill/@anthropics/tax-season-organizer, https://skillsafe.ai/skill/@anthropics/tax-prep)

## What it does

- Reads a transaction export (QuickBooks Transaction List by Vendor, Xero bills and payments, or any CSV / tab / pipe table) with date, payee, account and amount, plus optional type, payment method, W-9 / tax-id and 1099-tag columns. SSN-shaped values are removed in the browser before anything else reads them.
- Books check (free): income, expenses and net profit through the close; uncategorized items and how far they could move the annual estimate at the combined marginal rate; months with no activity; double postings; rows outside the year or after the close; expense rows with no identifiable payee. A verdict hint: ready, proceed with assumptions, or close the books first.
- 1099 view (free): every payee's total for the year; services, rent and unclassified payments tested against the year's threshold (USD 600 for tax year 2025; USD 2,000 for payments made after 2025); a near-threshold band at two thirds of it; W-9 on file / missing / unknown; likely duplicate payees (nicknames, initials, an email and a name) flagged and never merged; corporate names and attorneys noted; card and payment-processor payments noted for the 1099-K question.
- Quarterly estimate (free): YTD net, annualised (or the owner's full-year figure for a seasonal business); self-employment tax = net x 92.35% x 15.3% with the Social Security part capped at the year's wage base (not computed for an S-corporation's profit); the deductible half; federal tax at the assumed rate (22% by default); the annual liability; a quarter whose due date passed with nothing paid shown as its own catch-up line; the next installment and its due date; the safe-harbour floor when last year's tax is given.
- Paid lanes write the packet around those numbers: `ready` (verdict, open items, gate and basis statements), `nec` (1099 candidates with form, W-9 requests, duplicate and corporation reviews, processor and deadline notes), `quarterly` (the payment, catch-up lines, the calculation read, safe harbour, assumptions). Every figure the model states is reconciled against the browser's.

## Figures

- 2025: wage base USD 176,100; single brackets 10/12/22/24/32/35/37% at 11,925 / 48,475 / 103,350 / 197,300 / 250,525 / 626,350; estimated tax due Apr 15, Jun 16, Sep 15 2025 and Jan 15 2026; 1099-NEC due Feb 2 2026 (Jan 31 fell on a Saturday). Source: the tax-season-organizer skill's calculation reference.
- 2026: wage base USD 184,500; single brackets at 12,400 / 50,400 / 105,700 / 201,775 / 256,225 / 640,600; due Apr 15, Jun 15, Sep 15 2026 and Jan 15 2027; 1099-NEC due Feb 1 2027; threshold USD 2,000 under P.L. 119-21. Confirm each at irs.gov.
- Not applied, and listed for the accountant: state and local tax, QBI, retirement contributions, home office, vehicle, depreciation, self-employed health insurance, penalties and interest.

## Run input

One JSON object of strings: `task` (`ready` | `nec` | `quarterly`), `business`, `tax_year`, `pack` (a JSON string the browser builds: figures, books totals, flags, and per lane the readiness facts and problem rows, the payees at or near the threshold with duplicates, or the estimate steps), optional `question`, optional `readiness` (the books check's verdict carried into nec or quarterly), `retry_note` only on a reformat retry. The whole ledger is never sent.

## Output

One JSON object per lane with `headline`, `summary`, `assumptions`, `accountant_checklist` and `prescan_responses`, plus the lane's fields - see https://tax-prep-desk.skillsafe.ai/api.html.

## Limits

US federal only, tax years 2025 and 2026. No ledger connection, no IRS lookup, no filing. The corporation exemption, 1099-K overlap, bracket, penalties and interest are the accountant's decisions. The example businesses are fictional.