CPA — Form Finder

Not legal or tax advice. This maps situations to form families only. No thresholds, limits, rates, phase-outs, eligibility tests or dates appear here — all of them expire. Verify against current IRS instructions for the applicable year and the relevant state authority.

Activate when: scoping, quoting, or building a document request; a client describes something you want to place quickly; checking that a prepared return has the schedules its facts imply. Do NOT activate when: the question is a number, a limit, or a deadline; the return is already prepared and the question is whether it is right — that is [cpa-return-review].

Why this skill

A client says "I sold some crypto, my wife started consulting, and we have a rental in another state." In that sentence are six forms, two states, and three questions you need answered before you can quote the job.

The output of this skill is always two lists — forms likely in scope, and what you still have to determine. The second is the more useful one. A form list without its open questions reads as a conclusion, and it is not one.

Process

1. Decompose. Clients describe their year as a story; forms attach to events. For each element capture: what happened or what status holds · type (income / deduction / credit / information reporting / election / status) · which taxpayer or entity · timing, including whether it spans years · jurisdiction.

Gate: ask about location for every element, separately. The most common scoping error is a missed jurisdiction, not a missed form — a rental elsewhere, months of remote work, a mid-year move, an owner living in a different state from the entity. Each can add a filing nobody priced.