An AI agent that gets a client's return ready for a preparer to sign, never files it alone.
Tax preparers and CPA firms use Buda for client document organization, return draft population, prior-year comparison, tax research with citations, engagement checklist tracking, and filing status tracking, with agents and source documents in one workspace.
Filing season doesn't slow down for a document that hasn't arrived yet.
A client's W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, and receipts arrive by email, portal upload, and paper drop-off, while last year's filed return sits in a different piece of software entirely.
Before a preparer can open the return, someone has to assemble that one client's full document set and cross-check it against what was filed twelve months ago.
A generic AI tool fills in a figure it isn't sure about instead of flagging it. On a return that habit produces a misstated number, a missed form, or a position nobody actually signed off on.
Then filing season closes in, and a partner still cannot see which returns are document-complete, which are stalled on a client, or what changed from last year until someone asks around.
Build a workflow around AI Agent for Tax Filing.
Buda isn't a chat window a preparer opens for one question and closes again. The engagement's documents, the agents assigned to it, the checklist, and the rules for what needs a partner's eyes stay in the same place from January through the extension deadline.
A client document organization agent, a return draft population agent, a prior-year comparison and anomaly agent, a tax research agent, a client engagement checklist agent, and a filing status tracking agent all read from the same engagement workspace.
By the time a preparer opens the file, the documents are already sorted, the draft already populated, and last year's comparison already has its flags on it. Nobody starts from a blank return.
Portal uploads, emailed PDFs, paper drop-offs, last year's filed return, and the firm's engagement letter live in one place the agents read from, so the same document is never requested twice.
Six agents work this engagement end to end. Every one returns something a preparer can act on immediately: sorted, sourced, or already compared against last year.
Sort a client's W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, receipts, and prior-year return as they arrive by portal, email, and paper drop-off, and flag which documents are still missing before a preparer opens the file.
Read the organized document set and populate a return draft line by line, citing which source document fed each figure, and flag entries it could not source cleanly.
Set the current draft next to last year's filed return, line by line, and list what moved: a new income source, a dropped deduction, a bracket change, or a swing worth a second look.
Take one specific tax question, search the IRC, Treasury regulations, and relevant rulings, and return a memo with the position it found and the citation behind each point.
Track one client's engagement against the firm's standard checklist: engagement letter signed, documents received, draft reviewed, questions answered, and what is still open before the file can move to sign-off.
Roll up every client engagement into one filing-season view: which returns are document-complete, which are stalled on a client response, and which are sitting with a preparer past the usual turnaround.
Hand one of them a real client file and see what the first pass flags. Free pilot, no credit card.
Pick one client and don't widen the pilot until the reviewer stops rewriting the draft.
Four weeks, one engagement, and a draft that needs fewer corrections each week.
Start with client document organization, return draft population, prior-year comparison, tax research, or engagement checklist tracking.
Keep it to a single client and a single return. Anything wider makes it harder to tell whether the agent actually helped.
The workspace holds the client's documents, last year's filing, the preparer, the agents, and the review rule attached to each one, instead of scattered across separate tools.
Decide per agent what it may finish on its own versus what always waits for a human, and set it differently for a new client than a returning one if the engagement warrants it.
Sit with the preparer who reviewed the pilot week and go through what got flagged, why, and what the checklist still shows open.
Volume populated is not the number that matters. What matters is how much the preparer corrected before the return was ready to sign.
Move to a second client only once the preparer stops flagging the same kind of error from the first one.
If it doesn't reach that bar, the pilot still leaves something behind: a record of what each agent read, drafted, and had corrected.
Tax preparation is a trust function. A fast draft buys nothing if a figure is wrong, a position is indefensible, or nobody can explain a number when a client or a taxing authority asks.
Agents prepare the work. A credentialed preparer decides what gets filed, which here means an agent can organize documents, populate a draft, flag anomalies, or research a question, while an EA or CPA reviews it, corrects it, and signs the return that goes out under their credential.
Do not use AI as the preparer who determines a filing position, calculates final tax liability, or signs and files the return.
Think of Buda as the assembly work sitting underneath the return, never a stand-in for the person who signs it. Every draft carries its sources; the preparer whose name goes on the return still checks every number in it.
An AI agent for tax filing is a software agent that carries the mechanical half of return preparation: organizing a client's source documents, populating a return draft, comparing it against last year's filing, researching a specific tax question, and tracking an engagement checklist through filing season. Buda builds this from the documents a client's engagement actually has on file, and hands back a draft with anything uncertain called out for a preparer to settle.
Consumer tax software walks one taxpayer through their own return with a simple interview format. Buda is built for a preparer or firm handling many client engagements at once, where the output is a draft and an organized document set for a credentialed reviewer, not a return a consumer files directly.
No. A preparer's call on an ambiguous position, what a client's situation actually requires, and whether a number looks right by feel: none of that transfers to software. What an agent takes off a preparer's plate is the repetitive part, chasing down a missing document, re-keying a figure that's already sitting in a PDF, and lining this year up against last year before anyone reviews it.
Keep it small enough to check by hand. Client document organization on one engagement is the usual starting point, because a coordinator or preparer can confirm in minutes whether the flagged gaps are real.
No. An agent can organize the documents, populate the draft, flag what changed from last year, and research a specific question, but the filing position, the final numbers, the signature, and the submission belong to a credentialed preparer. Every output arrives as a draft the reviewer checks before anything moves forward.
Client document organization, return draft population, prior-year comparison and anomaly review, tax research with citations, engagement checklist tracking, and filing status visibility across a firm's client list. Buda doesn't replace the return software your firm files through; it sits alongside it, holding the client documents, the agents, and the rules for what needs review. If your firm also handles day-to-day bookkeeping, the AI agent for accounting page covers that separately.
Tax preparers and EAs, staff accountants, tax research specialists, client-services coordinators who manage the document flow, firm partners who sign returns, and operations managers tracking filing season across the client list. A two-person practice handling a few dozen returns and a firm juggling hundreds of engagements both fit, because each client's documents and rules stay apart from the next one's.
Move the document chasing, the drafting, and the checklist updates off your team's plate, while the signature stays exactly where it belongs.
Start with one workflow: client document organization, return draft population, prior-year comparison, tax research, or engagement checklist tracking.
Free pilot · No credit card · Live in 30 minutes