Claude Prompt Chain: Turn a Client's Tax Return into Neutral Questions for the CPA

What This Builds

You get a tidy list of questions for the client's CPA, built from the return itself. A chain of three prompts and a final check turns a redacted return and the household fact sheet into a table of the items your advisor asked about, a list of places where the return and your intake notes do not line up, and a draft of neutral, line-tied questions for the advisor to edit and approve.

Claude reads and sorts. It does not tell anyone what the right tax treatment is, and it never recommends anything. The CPA answers the tax questions. Your advisor decides what to ask and what to do with the answers.

Prerequisites

• A Claude account (Pro, $20/month), in the workspace or plan your chief compliance officer (CCO) has approved for client documents
• A redacted copy of the return (see below), or the line items typed by you with their form and line labels
• A household fact sheet of facts from intake, using Client A and Client B rather than names
• The list of items your advisor asked about

Total ongoing cost: one Claude plan ($20/month). The chain runs in a single conversation. Use Opus 5.5 or the strongest model your plan offers, because the comparison step benefits from careful reading.

Before You Upload: Client Data Rules

A tax return holds some of the most sensitive data you will handle. Decide where it can go before you start.

1. Ask your CCO which Claude plan or workspace, if any, is approved for client documents. If none is approved, do not upload the return. Type only the line items you need, each with its form and line label, into the chat.
2. Check Claude's data settings on your plan: whether chats and uploads are used for model training, and how long they are kept. A free consumer plan may use chats for training unless a setting is off.
3. Redact the return first, in your PDF tool, before it goes anywhere: names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home address, employer names, dependents' names, and bank routing and account details. Replace names with Client A and Client B. Check that the redaction is real and not a black box drawn over text that can still be selected.
4. Keep the fact sheet to roles and short facts. No account numbers and no health details.

Anything that goes to the CPA goes through the firm's approved, archived channels, after the advisor approves it.

The Concept

Think of three passes with a highlighter. First you mark only what is printed. Second you lay your intake notes beside it and mark where they disagree. Third you turn each mark into a polite question. A single big "analyze this return" prompt invites Claude to start explaining tax treatment, which you do not want and cannot rely on. Splitting the work into steps keeps each answer small enough to check against the page.

Each prompt feeds the next, in the same conversation, and you stop after each one to check the output before you continue.

Build It Step by Step

Part 1: Set Up

Start a new conversation. Attach the redacted return, or paste the typed line items. Have the advisor's list of items and the fact sheet open in another window. Do not paste them yet.

Part 2: Prompt 1, List the Items as Printed

Fill the square brackets and paste:

The attached document is a redacted copy of a household's tax return for [tax year]. I need only what is printed on it.

For each item in this list, find it on the return: [list of items, for example: wages; taxable interest; qualified dividends; distributions reported on Form 1099-R, gross and taxable amounts].

Return a table with these columns: Item | Form or schedule | Line label exactly as printed | Figure exactly as printed.

If an item is not on the return, write "not on this return" in the figure column. Do not add items I did not list. Do not explain, interpret or calculate anything.

Checkpoint 1. Open the return and check every row. Is each figure the same as on the page? Is each form, schedule and line label copied as printed? Is each "not on this return" really absent, and not just on a page you did not upload? Fix any wrong row by telling Claude what the page says, and do not go on until the table matches the return.

Part 3: Prompt 2, Compare With the Fact Sheet

Paste your fact sheet where the square brackets are:

Here is a household fact sheet from intake, written by me:

[paste the fact sheet]

Compare it with the table you just made. Give me three lists.
1. Mismatches: facts on the sheet that look inconsistent with a printed figure or line.
2. To confirm: facts with no matching item in the table.
3. Return items in the table that no fact on the sheet mentions.

Tie every entry to a row of the table by its form and line label. Say only what the two sources show. Do not say what the correct tax treatment is, whether anything was reported correctly, or what anyone should do. Where you cannot tell, write "confirm with CPA".

Checkpoint 2. Read each entry against the table and the fact sheet. Is each mismatch real? Did Claude judge any treatment or say something was right or wrong? Delete that wording. Did it miss a fact? Add it. Only entries you can see on both pages stay.

Part 4: Prompt 3, Draft the CPA Questions

Draft questions for the client's CPA based on the mismatches and items to confirm. Group them by topic with a short heading for each topic.

Each question must be a question and not a conclusion, one or two sentences, neutral in tone, and tied to its form and line label with the figure as printed. Do not suggest a treatment, do not say anything was wrong, and do not state any tax rule. Refer to the clients as Client A and Client B.

Checkpoint 3. Read every question as the CPA would. Does any question assume an answer? Rewrite it to ask. Does each question name its line and figure correctly? The advisor edits and approves the final wording, and the questions go to the CPA only through the firm's archived channel.

Part 5: The Final Check, Every Figure Back to the Return

List every figure you used in your last three answers, one per row: Figure | Where it appeared (table, comparison, or question number) | Form or schedule and line label as printed on the return.

If any figure appears in your answers but not in the return I attached, list it separately under "not found on the return".

Checkpoint 4. Tick each figure against the return. Anything under "not found on the return" must be removed from the questions before they go to the advisor. Do not use the questions until every figure is ticked.

Part 6: Save the Chain

Copy the four prompts into a document in the firm's approved location with the brackets intact, so you can reuse them. Never store a return, a fact sheet with names, or an answer in that file.

Real Example: Household 112, Tax Year 2025

Invented example. Everything below is invented.

Advisor's list: wages, taxable interest, qualified dividends, Form 1099-R distributions (gross and taxable).

Prompt 1 output (as the redacted return prints it):

You check each row against the return. In a real run the third column also carries the line number printed beside each label, copied exactly as it appears.

Fact sheet (invented): "Client A and Client B, ages 58 and 61. Client A rolled the former employer plan into the Client A Rollover IRA in 2025. Both clients were employed all of 2025."

Prompt 2 output:

• Mismatch: the fact sheet says a rollover to the Client A Rollover IRA happened in 2025. The 1099-R shows a gross distribution of 40,000 and a taxable amount of 40,000. Confirm with CPA.
• To confirm: the fact sheet says both clients were employed all year. The table shows wages of 148,000 as a single figure, with no split between Client A and Client B.
• Return item with no fact: taxable interest of 2,350 has no matching fact on the sheet.

Prompt 3 output (draft for the advisor):

Retirement account distribution

1. Our notes say Client A rolled a former employer plan into an IRA in 2025. The Form 1099-R shows a gross distribution of 40,000 and a taxable amount of 40,000. Was this distribution rolled over, and how was it reported on the return?

Income 2. The return shows wages of 148,000. Can you tell us how much of that belongs to each of Client A and Client B? 3. The return shows taxable interest of 2,350. Which accounts produced it?

Final check output: four figures, because 40,000 appears for two different lines.

You tick all four against the return, hand the draft to the advisor, and the advisor decides what goes to the CPA.

Time saved: the line-by-line cross-check of return against intake notes, and the first draft of the CPA email, are done in a short sitting. Checking against the return still takes real time, and it is the step that must not be skipped.

What to Do When It Breaks

• Claude says a figure that is not on the return. The final check should catch it. Remove the figure and its question, and check your redaction did not hide the page.
• Claude starts saying how something should be treated. Reply with: "Remove any statement about treatment. Say only what the return and the fact sheet show." Then re-check the whole answer, not just that line.
• "Not on this return" for an item you can see. The page may not have been uploaded or the scan may be unreadable. Re-upload a clean copy, or type the line items yourself.
• The comparison is long and vague. Shorten the fact sheet to one fact per line and run prompt 2 again.
• The conversation gets long and answers drift. Start a new conversation, upload again and paste the tables you already verified.

Variations

• Simpler version: run prompt 1 and the final check only, to produce a verified line-item list for the advisor.
• Extended version: keep the prompts in a Claude Project so you can reuse them. Ask your CCO before saving any client material in a Project.

What to Do Next

• This week: run the chain on one return and compare the time with your usual process.
• This month: agree a standard fact sheet layout with your advisor, so prompt 2 always receives the same structure.
• Advanced: add a rule that every CPA question list is reviewed by the advisor before it leaves the firm.

Advanced guide for paraplanner professionals. AI outputs can be wrong, so check every figure against the source document. Tax rules, limits and forms change every year, so rely on the CPA and the official instructions, not on Claude.