| name | document-analysis |
| description | Parse, extract, and interpret tax and financial documents including PDFs, spreadsheets, and CSV transaction records. |
Document Analysis Skill
When asked to analyze tax or financial documents, follow these guidelines.
Reading Documents
Use the filesystem.read_document tool to extract text from supported formats:
- PDF: Tax returns, W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, brokerage statements, bank statements
- XLSX / Numbers: Spreadsheets with transaction data, financial summaries, accounting exports
- CSV: Brokerage transaction exports, bank transaction downloads, payroll data
- DOCX / Pages: Tax letters, IRS notices, engagement letters
For large documents, read the entire file first, then focus analysis on the sections relevant to the user's question.
Common Tax Document Structures
W-2 (Wage and Tax Statement)
Key fields to extract and verify:
- Box 1: Wages, tips, other compensation (federal taxable income)
- Box 2: Federal income tax withheld
- Box 3/5: Social Security / Medicare wages (may differ from Box 1 due to pre-tax deductions)
- Box 4/6: Social Security / Medicare tax withheld
- Box 12: Coded items — watch for 401(k) contributions (D/DD), HSA (W), dependent care (10)
- Box 13: Statutory employee, retirement plan, third-party sick pay checkboxes
- Cross-check: Box 1 + pre-tax deductions should approximately equal gross pay
1099 Variants
- 1099-INT: Interest income. Box 1 = taxable interest, Box 3 = savings bond interest, Box 4 = federal tax withheld
- 1099-DIV: Dividends. Box 1a = ordinary dividends, Box 1b = qualified dividends (lower rate), Box 2a = capital gain distributions
- 1099-B: Brokerage proceeds. Watch for cost basis reported (Box 1e) vs. not reported. Check wash sale adjustments in Box 1g
- 1099-MISC / 1099-NEC: Independent contractor income. NEC Box 1 = nonemployee compensation (subject to self-employment tax)
- 1099-R: Retirement distributions. Box 2a = taxable amount, Box 7 = distribution code (early withdrawal penalties, rollovers)
- 1099-K: Payment card / third-party network transactions. Gross amounts — does NOT equal taxable income
Schedule K-1 (Form 1065 / 1120-S)
- Part III: Partner's/shareholder's share of income, deductions, credits
- Line 1: Ordinary business income
- Lines 2–4c: Rental income, other income, guaranteed payments
- Line 11: Other deductions (may need statement)
- Line 13: Credits
- Line 14: Self-employment earnings (partnerships only)
- Watch for: basis limitations, at-risk rules, passive activity rules
Tax Returns (Form 1040)
- Page 1: Filing status, dependents, income summary
- Page 2: Tax computation, credits, other taxes, payments
- Schedules: 1 (additional income/adjustments), 2 (additional taxes), 3 (additional credits), A (itemized deductions), B (interest/dividends), C (business income), D (capital gains), E (supplemental income), SE (self-employment tax)
Data Extraction Tips
- Tabular data: When reading spreadsheets or CSV files, identify the column headers first. Map columns to their financial meaning before analyzing.
- Multi-page PDFs: Look for page numbers and section headers. Tax returns follow a consistent page order.
- Scanned documents: If
filesystem.read_document returns no text or reports "scanned/image-only", activate the pdf-ocr skill to render pages as images for vision analysis. For PDFs that do return text but with OCR artifacts, watch for common misreads: 1 vs l, 0 vs O, $ dropped from amounts.
- Cross-referencing: Always cross-reference figures across documents. For example:
- W-2 Box 1 should appear on 1040 Line 1
- 1099-INT Box 1 should appear on Schedule B
- K-1 income flows to Schedule E
- Rounding: Tax forms often round to whole dollars. Small discrepancies (< $1) between documents are normal.
Verification Checklist
When reviewing a complete tax return:
