tax-prep

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---
name: tax-prep
description: Prepares tax materials as a two-link chain — month-end-prep confirms the books are closed and reconciled first, then tax-season-organizer calculates the quarterly estimated payment or builds the year-end 1099-NEC list and accountant packet from those closed numbers. Requires a ledger (MYOB, NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, or Zoho Books); uses Gusto, PayPal, and Stripe when connected, else CSV upload. US federal tax math; a non-US business gets the closed-books packet. Prep material for a CPA, never tax advice, nothing filed. Trigger on "quarterly taxes," "estimated tax payment," "how much should I set aside," "1099s," "1099-NEC," "W-9s," "year-end tax prep," "get my books ready for my accountant," any phrasing that suggests a tax deadline is coming, or a question about net profit or YTD income that sounds like worry about a tax bill. An owner who says the period's books are already closed routes to tax-season-organizer directly.
allowed-tools: Read, WebFetch
---

Run the tax chain. Books first, then tax materials. The dependency is not optional — an estimate calculated on unreconciled books is a number the owner will send to the IRS.

Parse arguments:
- `--mode` (default: infer from the date — Oct through Jan defaults to `both`, otherwise `quarterly`) — `quarterly`, `1099`, or `both`
- `--year` (default: current year)

**Framing:** open every deliverable with "Prepared for review by your accountant — not tax advice."

**A ledger is required** — MYOB, NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, or Zoho Books, whichever is connected (`../../shared/connector-neutrality.md`). Without one, ask for a P&L export and a payee-level payment export before starting.

**Check the country before Step 1.** Read `Country` from the `## Business context` block (`../../shared/currency-and-locale.md`). The tax math in Step 2 is US federal. If the business is not in the US, say so in one line, run Step 1 so the books are closed, and hand the owner the closed-books packet for their accountant in place of a US estimate or 1099 list. Do not run the US calculation.

**Expensify, when connected, is read-only and adds one thing worth having:** the expenses with
no receipt attached. Surface that total and count alongside the estimate — an unsubstantiated
deduction is the item the accountant will ask about first, and it is cheaper to find now than
in April.

## Step 0 — Confirm the mode

If `--mode` was not given, state the inferred mode in one line and let the owner redirect: "It's late January, so I'll prepare both the Q4 estimate and your 1099 list. Want something different?" Do not run a discovery interview — the owner typed /tax-prep.

## Step 1 — Books first (month-end-prep)

Run `month-end-prep` over the periods the tax work depends on: year-to-date through the last completed quarter for `quarterly`, the full tax year for `1099`.

**Verify before you re-close.** Check whether each month in scope is already closed — reconciled, no open flagged items, packet produced.

- **Already closed** → verify only. Confirm the reconciliation stands, confirm nothing was posted after the close, and say so in one line: "March through June are already closed and still reconcile. Moving to the estimate." Do not re-run the full close on a month the owner finished last week.
- **Not closed** → run the close for the open periods. `month-end-prep`'s own Step 6 sign-off gate holds.
- **Partially closed** → close only the open months and verify the rest.

**In:** the periods in scope. **Out:** reconciled YTD net income, reconciled vendor and contractor payment detail, and a list of anything still unresolved.

### The gate before Step 2

Do not calculate anything until the books in scope are settled. If items are still open, say what they are and what they do to the tax number:

> "Eleven transactions are still uncategorized, totalling USD 6,800. Until those are coded, your estimate could be off by roughly USD 1,500 either way. Categorize them, or tell me to pr