Today's Agent Skill: Business Tax Deduction Identifier
What It Does
Most small business owners leave money on the table every tax season not because they cheated, but because they simply did not know which ordinary expenses qualify as deductions. This skill reviews your full expense list and flags potential deductions by IRS category before you hand anything off to your accountant.
How It Works
The agent reads a categorized export of your business expenses and maps each line to common IRS Schedule C deduction categories: home office, vehicle, software and subscriptions, professional development, meals, travel, supplies, and more. It produces three lists — likely deductible, check with your CPA, and not deductible — plus a documentation checklist for each flagged item.
How to Deploy It
Run in Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or Windsurf against a CSV export from QuickBooks, Wave, FreshBooks, or a business bank account. Best run in October or November so you have time to gather any missing documentation before year-end, and again in January on your full-year export. Share the flagged output with your CPA as a starting checklist — it typically cuts their prep time and your bill.
SKILL.md — Ready to Deploy
## Description
Reviews a categorized business expense list, flags potential IRS tax deductions by category, and outputs a documentation checklist — for use as a pre-accountant review tool, not final tax advice.
## Trigger
Invoke when the user provides an expense list or CSV and says "find my tax deductions," "which expenses can I write off," or "prepare my deduction checklist."
## Input
- Expense CSV with columns: date, vendor, description, amount, current_category
- Business entity type: sole proprietor, LLC, S-Corp, or partnership
- Business-use percentage for shared expenses (home office, vehicle) — user-supplied
- State of business operation
- Optional: prior year deductions taken, for comparison
## Steps
1. Map each expense to the closest IRS Schedule C deduction category: advertising, car and truck, commissions and fees, depreciation, insurance, legal and professional, office expenses, rent or lease, repairs and maintenance, supplies, taxes and licenses, travel, meals, utilities, wages, or other.
2. Flag expenses that clearly qualify for a deduction (e.g., software subscriptions for business use, professional association dues, job-specific tools and equipment).
3. Flag expCopy the full SKILL.md and drop it into your agent's skills directory to activate this skill.