A Claude Code skill for preparing US federal individual income tax returns.
This skill helps you:
- Plan document collection — Analyze a prior year return to generate a checklist of expected tax documents for the current year
- Identify required forms — Determine which IRS forms are needed based on your source documents
- Complete form PDFs — Fill out IRS form PDFs directly from your source documents with built-in validation
- Audit completed returns — Cross-check forms against source documents to catch common errors before filing
- Tax advice or tax planning
- State tax returns (vary significantly by jurisdiction)
- E-filing (output is completed PDFs for printing and mailing)
Skills are markdown files placed in a skills/ directory that Claude Code discovers automatically.
Personal install (available across all your projects):
git clone https://github.com/calef/us-federal-tax-assistant-skill.git \
~/.claude/skills/us-federal-tax-assistantProject install (current project only):
git clone https://github.com/calef/us-federal-tax-assistant-skill.git \
.claude/skills/us-federal-tax-assistantIRS form PDFs are not bundled in the repo. Download them separately after cloning:
cd ~/.claude/skills/us-federal-tax-assistant
# Download forms for a specific year (fast, ~few dozen MB)
python3 download-forms.py 2025
# Download forms for multiple years
python3 download-forms.py 2024 2025 2026
# Download all ~700 forms
python3 download-forms.pyForms download into a local forms/<year>/ directory that is not committed to git. Requires Python 3 (stdlib only — no extra dependencies).
Once installed, Claude will automatically apply this skill when you mention:
- "tax return" / "tax filing"
- "1040" or IRS form names
- W-2, 1099, and related document types
- Requests to help with taxes
Step 1 — Document checklist Upload last year's tax return and ask Claude to generate a document checklist for this year.
Step 2 — Form identification Once you have your documents, upload them and ask Claude which IRS forms you'll need. Claude will provide direct links to download current blank forms from irs.gov.
Step 3 — Form completion Upload the blank forms along with your source documents. Claude will fill them out, performing validation checks as it goes.
Step 4 — Audit Ask Claude to audit the completed return, comparing source document values against what was entered.
IRS form layouts and line numbers change annually. When completing forms, always download fresh copies from irs.gov and upload them — do not rely on cached copies.
| Form | Purpose |
|---|---|
| 1040 | Main individual return |
| Schedule 1 | Additional income and adjustments |
| Schedule 2 | Additional taxes |
| Schedule 3 | Additional credits |
| Schedule A | Itemized deductions |
| Schedule B | Interest and dividends |
| Schedule D | Capital gains and losses |
| Form 8949 | Sales of capital assets |
| Form 8889 | HSA contributions and distributions |
| Form 8995 | Qualified business income deduction |
| Form 1116 | Foreign tax credit |
| Schedule 8812 | Child tax credit |
GPL v3 — see LICENSE.md