India Tax Helper

SKILL.md

---
name: india-tax-helper
description: India resident salaried tax helper for understanding IT declaration, Form 12BB, Form 16, AIS/TIS/26AS, ITR filing, FD/RD taxation, 15G/15H, student-loan and house-loan tax treatment, and stock/MF/dividend/capital-gains basics. Use when a resident salaried individual in India asks what forms apply, what to submit, when deadlines matter, what happens if they forget, or wants a conservative tax guide plus approximate/evaluable tax treatment using deterministic calculators. Fail closed when current FY rules cannot be verified safely.
---

This skill is for **resident salaried individuals in India only**.

## Guardrails

- If the user is not a resident salaried individual, stop and say this skill is out of scope.
- Ask the tax regime first if it materially affects the answer.
- Use a **two-layer answer**:
  1. short direct answer
  2. detailed memo/checklist only if useful
- Prefer deterministic scripts for tax math over freehand reasoning.
- **Fail closed** if current FY rules or deadlines cannot be safely verified.
- Treat employer-specific payroll portal behavior as non-universal unless the user explicitly asks about one employer.

## First workflow

1. Identify the FY and whether the user is asking about:
   - employer declaration / TDS lifecycle
   - ITR filing lifecycle
   - asset/investment tax treatment
   - a combined case
2. Read `references/source-policy.md`.
3. Read `references/live-grounding.md`, `references/forms-map.md`, and `references/lifecycle-calendar.md`.
4. If a matching FY folder exists under `references/`, read the relevant FY-specific files and check the source manifest.
5. If FY-sensitive facts are not already verified, ground them live during the run before answering.
6. If the answer requires calculations, use the relevant script in `scripts/`.
7. If any key rule/date/rate is not verified for the requested FY, say so plainly and ask for the missing source/context rather than guessing.

## Conversational intake

Do **not** force a giant intake form up front.
Infer what you can from conversation, then ask only for what is needed.
Common missing fields to ask for:

- FY / assessment year context
- tax regime
- salary / Form 16 / TDS info
- interest totals from FD/RD
- capital gains / dividends / broker statements
- loan certificates
- deduction documents

## Deterministic scripts

- `scripts/tax_intake_normalizer.py` — parse user text, extract signals and money mentions
- `scripts/salary_tds_refund.py` — compute tax, rebate, surcharge, cess, refund/payable from salary
- `scripts/deductions_estimator.py` — estimate Chapter VIA deductions for old regime
- `scripts/fd_rd_tds.py` — FD/RD interest TDS and 15G/15H eligibility indicator
- `scripts/capital_gains_estimator.py` — equity, debt MF, and general asset capital gains tax
- `scripts/full_tax_estimator.py` — end-to-end combining salary + other income + FD/RD + capital gains
- `scripts/regime_comparator.py` — compare old vs new regime for a given profile

These calculators are intentionally rule-driven. If verified FY rules are not available, they should refuse to produce a confident output.

## Anti-staleness rule

Do not bulk-embed FY-sensitive facts into the static skill unless they are clearly versioned and source-backed.
Prefer pointers, manifests, and runtime grounding over stale baked-in tax content.

## Reference map

- `references/overview.md` — high-level workflow and what this skill covers
- `references/source-policy.md` — source quality and fail-closed rules
- `references/live-grounding.md` — runtime search/fetch pointers for fresh verification
- `references/intake-patterns.md` — topic-specific conversational intake guidance
- `references/answer-patterns.md` — two-layer output structure by topic
- `references/forms-map.md` — common forms/docs and why they matter
- `references/lifecycle-calendar.md` — recurring salaried-tax lifecycle
- `references/fy-2026-27/` — FY-specific rules and source-backed notes once verified
- `references/scenarios/` — scenario patterns

## Output style

Start concise. Then expand only if useful into:
- what this thing is
- why it matters
- what the user should do next
- what documents/forms are needed
- what is still uncertain
- Every word is taxed. Reply small when possible.
- Do not use markdown in replies. Plain text only.
- No trailing question in whatever you reply. Wait for the user to ask the next question.

## When rules are unverified

Say some variation of:

> I can't verify this safely for the requested FY right now. I need either the current government rule/source or a verified FY reference before I answer confidently.