AI tax research tool: from the rule to your client list

A good AI tax research tool searches live sources for the current-year rule and returns the answer with citations you can open: the code section, the regulation or the IRS guidance. For a tax firm, the useful next step is a client list. Analyst, Filed's firm-wide assistant, does both. It answers the research question and, when you ask, checks the rule against every client Filed has processed and returns the clients it affects, with the figures behind each one.

Why can firm-wide questions take an afternoon?

Because the answer is spread across systems that each see one client at a time. Who is still missing a K-1? Which clients will owe in April? Whose income jumped this year?

The facts sit in the tax software, the practice management system, the document portal and a few partners' spreadsheets. Answering means running a report, exporting it, filtering by hand and checking the edge cases, and the list is a snapshot of the day it was run. Research has the same gap from the other side. A research tool explains how a phase-out works and stops there. Finding which of your clients the phase-out hits is a second, manual project.

What can you ask Analyst?

Questions about one client or all of them, plus technical tax research. Every client Filed processes adds to a firm-wide record of their tax facts, such as entity type, state, income, K-1s, rentals and estimated payments, and Analyst queries that record directly.

Pick a client to focus the question, or leave it open to ask about all of them. The answer comes back as a table you can export. You can also drop a file into the chat, even a brand-new one, and Analyst reads every page before it answers. Ask "where is..." about a client's documents and the answer links to the exact box on the form, which opens in the Binder with the value outlined.

How is an AI tax research tool different from asking a chatbot?

Analyst looks up the current-year rule instead of relying on what a model remembers, and shows the source. Rates, limits and phase-out ranges move every year. A general chat model is trained on a snapshot and can quote last year's figure with full confidence.

The SALT cap is a good test. $40,000 was the 2025 figure. For 2026 the cap is $40,400, reduced by 30% of modified AGI above $505,000 and floored at $10,000 under 26 U.S.C. §164(b)(6) and (7). Analyst searches live sources and answers with citations to primary authority: the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury regulations and IRS guidance. We cover what general assistants can and can't do with tax work in Can Claude or ChatGPT prepare tax returns?, and the same rule applies to research: trust the citation, then check it.

What does going from a rule to a client list look like?

One conversation. Ask how the rule works, then ask who it applies to.

Here is a prompt firms use:

"Identify all clients that have $100k of gross Schedule C income and no SEP IRA"

Analyst returns the matching clients with each one's 2026 SEP room and estimated federal savings. On a demo firm, the answer looks like the table below. In this example, SEP room is 20% of net self-employment earnings (net profit less half of self-employment tax), capped at the $72,000 annual additions limit, using 2025 profit, and the deduction is priced at each client's top federal rate.

Download the table as a spreadsheet and the list is ready for the team to work. Filed Tax Planner then builds the full plan for each client, starting from their return. We cover that step in What does AI tax planning software do for CPA firms?

The same pattern works for any rule with a threshold. Ask how the 2026 SALT phase-down works, then ask "Which clients had 2025 modified AGI between $505,000 and $606,333?" Those are the clients whose 2026 cap would sit on the slope between $40,400 and $10,000 if income holds, where lowering MAGI, by timing income or with a PTET election, also restores part of the cap. For married filing separately, halve the thresholds.

Can Analyst look at related entities together?

Yes. Ask about an owner group and Analyst can compare K-1 income across a client's LLCs, add up QBI across entities or track pass-through losses, even when each entity is set up as a separate client in Filed. There is no consolidated client to build first.

What happens to the answer after you get it?

It goes where the work happens: a spreadsheet, the client's documents, or a routine the whole firm can rerun.

• Tables and spreadsheets: download as CSV or a spreadsheet, ready to filter and share.
• Saved with the client: checklists, tables and tax positions open beside the chat as finished pages. Save to documents keeps the page in the client's Documents, on hold until you choose Process document to add it to the Binder.
• Templates: save a format you like, for yourself or for the firm.
• Routines: a routine is a question you want answered again and again, saved with its steps. Turn any chat into one with a click, and Analyst reruns it on many clients at once, on a schedule or whenever a task changes status. Routines are shared across the workspace, so one person's weekly report becomes the firm's.

When connected, Analyst also answers from the tools around the return: clients, tasks and metrics in Double, ledger data and financial statements from Digits, and meeting transcripts and action items from Ping. During busy season, the pipeline questions can replace a weekly status report.

Can Analyst do the work, not only answer it?

Yes, within your own permissions. Ask the chat to do something, such as "add a note on the 1099-SA asking for HSA receipts", and it looks up how that task is done in Filed, reads the Binder and takes the same steps you would, as you. A work card above the answer shows each step, and Esc stops it.

The note lands on the document under your name, like one you added yourself, and stays with the team: it doesn't notify the client. The assistant asks in the chat before any change you didn't ask for. Claude, ChatGPT and Claude Code can use the same tools through Filed MCP, with the same access you have.

Where does Analyst stop?

At the facts it has and the decisions it should not make.

• Answers about clients reflect each client as of their latest processing in Filed. Answers from connected tools are pulled live when you ask.
• Research answers cite primary sources. Analyst does not include the proprietary treatise libraries some research services license, so firms that rely on those for deep work may keep them.
• Analyst sees what you can see. Admins can ask about every client; members ask about the clients their team can access, and the chat can only do what they could do in Filed.
• A client list is the start of a conversation. The tax professional decides who gets a call and what to recommend.

Frequently asked questions

What is Analyst by Filed?

Analyst is Filed's assistant for the whole firm. Other Filed tools work on one client at a time; Analyst works across all of them, reading a firm-wide record built from each client's tax documents. Analyst also does tax research, citing the code section, regulation or IRS guidance it relies on, and can check that rule against your clients. Filed works with CCH Axcess, Lacerte, Drake and ProConnect, so your team keeps its tax software.

Can I rely on AI tax research?

Rely on the citation, not the summary. Every research answer links the source behind it, so you can check it the way you would check a colleague's memo before it goes in a file.

How is Analyst different from chat inside a client's binder?

Every chat in Filed now looks and works the same; the difference is scope. Binder chat works on one client and reads that client's documents page by page, so it can answer "Does box 4 match 6.2% of wages?" Analyst works across every client at once. Use the binder for page-level questions and Analyst for questions about your book.

Is our client data used to train AI models?

No. Client data is never used to train models shared with other firms, and each firm's data is kept separate from every other firm's. Filed is SOC 2 Type II audited and ISO 27001 certified.

Is Analyst included in our plan?

Yes. Analyst is part of every Filed plan and every user at the firm can use it. Filed is priced as one flat monthly platform fee for the whole firm, scoped to taxpayer count, with no per-return, seat or overage charges.

Bring a research question your team looked up last week to a demo, and see it answered in Analyst.