Tax Season

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Document gather runs the 1st of the month · 7:30am and keeps the This return dashboard fresh. The first of the month — reads your email for the documents the return needs, and files them into the pack.
• What is captured lands in the Tax returns dataset, which lives at Data/Tax Returns in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Return needs dataset, which lives at Data/Return Needs in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Tax pack dataset, which lives at Data/Tax Pack in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Tax payments dataset, which lives at Data/Tax Payments in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Tax office letters dataset, which lives at Data/Tax Letters in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the In-year log dataset, which lives at Data/Tax Year Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Carried forward dataset, which lives at Data/Tax Carried Forward in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Questions for the accountant dataset, which lives at Data/Accountant Questions in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The This return dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: this return · to the deadline · income on record · what the return still needs · the pack by category · from the last gather · payments to make · letters to answer · questions for the accountant · deductions on record · items in the pack · how this board works · your returns.

The wiring, in one breath: Tax capture writes to Tax returns · Tax capture writes to Return needs · Tax capture writes to Tax pack · Document gather writes to Tax pack · Tax pack shown by This return · Return needs shown by This return · This return kept fresh by Document gather · Tax pack summarised by Pack summary · Pack summary given to Reed · Country profiles given to Reed · Payments and letters keeps Tax payments · Payments and letters keeps Tax office letters · Year-round records keeps In-year log · Year-round records keeps Carried forward · Accountant questions keeps Questions for the accountant · Tax payments shown by This return · Tax office letters shown by This return · Questions for the accountant shown by This return · In-year log read by Pack summary · Document gather reads Tax payments.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Frame the return the day you install — the year, the deadline, and the kinds of income and relief in play — and let Reed write the list of what it needs. What the return still needs is the honest signal on the board from that moment: a tick is a document in the pack, and nothing else moves it.
• Say a document the way you'd say it to a friend — "the interest certificate came", "gave $120 to the food bank" — and Tax capture files it and ticks the list. Forward the email or drop the statement in the vault and say what it is; a figure from memory is written as your word, and the receipt replaces it on the same row when it turns up. If you have imported a bank statement as a table and categorised it, ask Reed what it holds for the return: it shows each category with its count and total, split by tag such as the property, and files only the ones you choose, under the heading you give.
• Look at the board on the second of the month, after the Document gather has read your email for the documents on the list. From the last gather says what it found, each with its sender; a line reading "still missing" is a phone call or a shrug, and only you know which.
• Read Income on record and Deductions on record as what has been gathered, never as what you owe — each says how many items it rests on and when it was last summed. The countdown is as of the same gather; the deadline itself is on the register.
• When something on the list turns out not to apply — no dividends this year, the accountant doesn't need that one — say so, and Reed marks it not needed on your word alone. That is the correction that keeps "6 of 8" true.
• When it is time, ask for the pack summary: one sheet in your vault with every item, its amount, where it came from, the subtotals, and what is still missing — for you or whoever files. It never fills a form; ask and it carries a running estimate of what the return may cost, labelled an estimate and never your tax bill. The decision, and any accountant, is yours.
• Ask Reed when the payments fall and it reads the dates off the tax office's own pages, with the page and the year; a date goes on Payments to make once you say it is yours, and an amount only as you or a statement from the tax office gives it. Tick a payment when it has gone. Tell Reed what you have put by whenever it changes: it is kept on the return as your own figure, and Reed can set it against a running estimate and suggest what to aim for, always labelled an estimate, not your tax bill.
• Keep the year-round records as they happen — "drove 84 miles to the client", "worked from home today" — and they land on the In-year log against the right return, so the totals are on the pack summary when it is time. From last year's return, say the amounts it carries forward and where they are written; they are kept exactly as stated.
• When a letter from the tax office arrives, tell Reed or drop it in the vault: it is filed with its date, what it asks and by when, and waits on Letters to answer until you tick it done. Reed never replies to the tax office for you.
• Before you see the accountant, put your questions on the list ("ask about last year's loss") and open Questions for the accountant on the board in the meeting: tick each one asked and note what was said. Whether to claim something is exactly the question that belongs there.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• What the return needs — the list is yours: add an item by mentioning it, and mark one not needed on your word.
• What you call each return — the year on the register is the word Reed uses back.
• When the Document gather runs: the first of the month by default, weekly when the deadline is close, or off and the pack kept by hand.
• How close to the deadline a missing item earns a card: sixty days is the default, and the deadline itself at thirty.
• Which senders it may read for tax paperwork — your employer, your banks, your pension provider — and what never to file.
• What you call each payment and each question list — the words on Payments to make and on the questions are yours.
• What you count on the In-year log: journeys, days at home, or anything else the return will want, in miles or kilometres.
• Which country you file in — the country on your account, or another if you tell Reed. Reed uses that country's tax office, tax year, return and papers, and reads every deadline from the tax office's own pages.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends with "Meet Reed" — the Kit's own keeper — and a short conversation, not a form. Reed looks before it asks. It first checks what you have already told 1Presence and any papers in your vault, such as last year's return or a pay statement, asking your permission to look there if it needs it, and shows you what it found so you can confirm or correct it. Then the frame: which tax year, as you name it, and when it is due. Then one tap-to-answer panel offering the kinds of income and relief a return can carry — employment, freelance work, rental property, savings interest, dividends, pension income and contributions, gifts to charity, work expenses, selling something — leaving out what it already found, and from what you pick, Reed proposes the usual documents in plain words and writes each one you agree to onto the list. Anything you already have goes into the pack as you say so.
2. Nothing in that conversation reads your email. The Document gather does — on the first morning of each month it searches for exactly the documents on the list, plus the senders who usually send tax-time paperwork, and asks for email access the first time it runs. Run it straight away from the Routines screen if you would rather not wait; the first run reads back to the start of the return's period.
3. Skip the conversation, or stop part-way, and nothing is lost. Until a return is on the register, the first-of-the-month gather leaves one card asking for the year and the deadline rather than searching for nothing. Whatever is still missing, a deadline or the list of what the return needs, waits on the Kit page with a way back to Reed, and Reed offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking. The bills, the loans and what you hold are other Kits' desks — Reed hands you across, and a figure from one of them reaches the pack only when you say so.
4. From the first gather with a return framed, each document found becomes one row in the pack with its sender as evidence and ticks its item on the list; the board's totals and countdown are redrawn as of that morning. Most months it says nothing. It leaves a card only when something on the list is still missing with the deadline close, when the deadline is within a month, or when it needs you to say what a document is.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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