What does AI tax planning software do for CPA firms?

AI tax planning software checks a client's tax picture against a library of planning strategies and drafts a plan with the projected savings for each one. The useful kind starts from the completed return and shows the calculation and the authority behind every number, and the tax professional decides which strategies reach the client. Filed Tax Planner works this way across 1040, 1065, 1120-S, 1120, 1041 and 990 returns.

Why does tax planning get pushed to the back of the queue?

Because the work that produces a plan is mostly analysis, and analysis competes with compliance for the same hours. Clients want it. In the Thomson Reuters Institute 2026 State of Tax Professionals Report, 74% of respondents say their clients strongly want additional financial advice, which the report calls a core demand as clients look for more than basic tax preparation.

Supply is the problem. A planner working from a blank spreadsheet has to re-key the return, look up this year's limits, test each strategy against the client's facts and then write it up in language a client will read. For one business owner that can take hours. Across a book of several hundred clients, planning often goes to the few who ask.

Where should a tax plan start?

From the completed return. The return already holds the facts a plan depends on: income by source, entity structure, K-1s, the states a client files in, and the deductions taken and missed.

Some tools start from an empty questionnaire or a chat box, which means typing those facts back in, and every retyped number is a chance for the plan and the return to disagree. Filed Tax Planner starts from the completed return: a return Filed prepared, a return printed from the tax software into Filed, or an uploaded PDF. Filed works with CCH Axcess, Lacerte, Drake and ProConnect, so the firm keeps its tax software.

How does Filed Tax Planner build a plan?

In four steps, and the tax professional controls the two that decide what the client sees.

1. Start from the return. Upload the completed return or print it from your tax software. Filed Tax Planner also reads the K-1s and the documents in the client's Binder.
2. Choose the protocols. Protocols are the firm's written planning rules, such as its position on reasonable compensation or which authority it cites. Firm protocols apply to everyone, each planner can add their own, and any protocol can be left out for a single client without changing it for anyone else.
3. Pick the strategies. Filed Tax Planner checks the return against more than 300 strategies and lists the ones the return supports. Select, dismiss or restore each one, and the projected savings update as you go.
4. Produce the plan. Ask the planning chat for the client-ready PDF in the firm's own format. It opens beside the chat, and Save to documents keeps it with the client. Review it and send it yourself. Filed never sends anything to a client on its own.

What does a cited strategy look like?

Each strategy ties its projected savings to line items on the return, shows the calculation step by step and links the code section or IRS guidance it rests on. Here is one strategy for a demo client, a California S corporation owner with $2,400,000 of K-1 income and modified AGI of about $3.2 million.

In Filed Tax Planner, you can click any number to see where it came from. A source-document citation opens that document at the cited page with the box outlined, and an authority link opens the source. A reviewer can check the plan the same way they check a return, and the partner can answer a client's "where did this number come from?" without rebuilding it.

Can the plan follow your firm's look?

Yes. Write down once how your client plans should look, as one of the firm's protocols, and every plan after that comes out in your layout, ready to download as a PDF and send. Change the protocol and every future plan follows it, whoever runs it.

Which returns can it plan for?

All six return types Filed prepares: individual (1040), partnership (1065 with K-1s), S corporation (1120-S), C corporation (1120), estate and trust (1041) and exempt organization (990). Which strategies run depends on the return in front of it.

Each strategy carries an estimated saving and a horizon: this year, multi-year, lifetime, or tied to an event such as a sale. The plan totals each horizon separately, so a one-time saving is never added to a recurring one.

Where does the CPA's judgment come in?

At every point where a choice affects the client. Filed Tax Planner does the analytical work: reading the return, testing strategies, pricing them and citing them. The tax professional does the judgment work.

That means deciding which strategies fit the client's goals and appetite for risk, and accounting for what the return cannot show, such as a planned sale, a divorce or a child starting college next fall. You can ask about any strategy in plain language and get the calculation and citation back. The planning chat works like every chat in Filed, so you can also drop in a document the return doesn't include, and it reads every page before it answers. Where a strategy cannot be priced from what is on the return, Filed marks it as not quantifiable instead of guessing a number.

How do you find the next client a strategy fits?

Ask across the whole book instead of one client at a time. A strategy that works for one client usually fits others, and finding them by hand means running reports and filtering spreadsheets.

Analyst, Filed's firm-wide assistant, answers questions across every client Filed has processed. Ask it to "Identify all clients that have $100k of gross Schedule C income and no SEP IRA" and it returns the matching clients with each one's 2026 SEP room and estimated federal savings. Filed Tax Planner then builds the full plan one client at a time. We walk through that example in AI tax research tool: from the rule to your client list.

What should you check when evaluating AI tax planning software?

Six questions decide whether a plan will hold up in review and in front of the client.

1. Does it start from the completed return, or ask your team to re-enter it?
2. Can you trace every number to a line item, a calculation and an authority?
3. Does it cover the returns you prepare, including 1065, 1120-S, 1041 and 990, or only individual returns?
4. Can it follow your firm's written rules, and leave one out for a single client?
5. Who sends the plan to the client? The answer should be your team.
6. Is planning priced per plan, or included in what you already pay?

The same tests apply to the rest of the workflow. Our guide to tax workflow automation that follows your firm's rules covers how firm rules carry through prep and review, and AI for accountants looks at how firms use these tools day to day.

Frequently asked questions

Does Filed Tax Planner replace the planner?

No. Filed Tax Planner finds the opportunities and builds a substantiated draft. The planner applies judgment, chooses the strategies and signs off, and nothing reaches the client until they do.

How is Filed Tax Planner priced?

Filed Tax Planner is included in the Filed platform. Firms pay one flat monthly platform fee for the whole firm, scoped to taxpayer count, with prep, review and planning included. There are no per-plan, per-return, seat or overage charges, and the rate is fixed for the contract year. See pricing.

Can it plan for partnerships, trusts and nonprofits?

Yes. Filed Tax Planner has strategy libraries for 1065, 1120-S, 1120, 1041 and 990 returns as well as 1040s, from cost segregation on a partnership to DNI timing on a trust and the §501(h) election on a 990.

What happens when a figure is not on the return?

Filed uses official sources such as IRS and state revenue sites. If a strategy cannot be priced from what is available, Filed marks it as not quantifiable instead of guessing.

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.

Book a demo from the Tax Planner page to see it build a plan from a real return.