Tax Posture

Scope

Tax work gets harder when it is detached from the transactions and entities it depends on. This guide keeps the public-safe operating view and excludes private filing or integration mechanics.

Tax management, quarterly estimates, 1099s, financial obligations calendar, compliance calendar, annual reporting package, and sales tax management (nexus, jurisdiction rates, exemption certificates, remittance tracking).

The routed tax workspace uses the canonical tax/report permission contract, so the sidebar and tax action buttons stay aligned with the backend permission model.

Tax Management

Tax Rates

Tax rates apply to invoice calculations.

List tax rates:

Create tax rate:

Fields: - name (required) – e.g., “California Sales Tax” - jurisdiction (required) – e.g., “CA” - rate_percentage (required) – 0.0 to 100.0 - is_default – boolean; setting this clears default from other rates

The default tax rate is automatically applied to new invoices unless the customer is tax-exempt.

Customer Tax Exemption

View tax status:

Update tax status:

Fields: - tax_exempt – boolean

Tax-exempt customers are not charged tax on invoices.

Tax Bracket Sets

Tax brackets drive income tax estimation for quarterly estimates and the annual package.

Check bracket status (staleness):

Reports whether the current brackets are up-to-date for a given year and jurisdiction.

List bracket sets:

Create bracket set:

Fields: - name (required) - tax_year (required) - jurisdiction – default: - effective_date (required) - expiry_date – optional - bracket_data (required) – array of { upper_bound_cents, rate } (ascending, last bracket must be a catch-all with upper_bound_cents >= 10,000,000,000) - se_tax_rate – self-employment tax rate - se_deduction_factor – SE tax deduction factor - corp_tax_rate – corporate tax rate - fica_rate – FICA rate - source – e.g., “IRS Publication 15-T”

The Tax Brackets page starts with a valid starter ladder instead of an invalid single row. Keep the bracket upper bounds ascending and leave the final row at or above $100,000,000.00 so the create request passes validation on the first try.

Update/deactivate bracket sets:

Tax Payments

Track tax payments made to federal and state authorities.

List tax payments:

Record tax payment:

Fields: - quarter – YYYY-QN format (e.g., 2026-Q1) - tax_year (required) - amount_cents (required, > 0) - payment_date (required) - confirmation_number - notes

Tax payment summary:

Returns totals by type, by quarter, and overall payment count.

Sales Tax Management

Navigate to Financials > Tax > Sales Tax (or the relevant workflow) to manage multi-jurisdiction sales tax.

The page has four tabs:

Nexus Tracking

Track which states you have sales tax nexus in and monitor threshold progress.

• Add a state with + Add Nexus, selecting the state, setting the revenue/transaction thresholds, and registering if applicable.
• A progress bar shows how close YTD revenue is to the nexus threshold. Warning badges appear at 80% (“Approaching”) and 100% (“Breached”).
• Deactivate a nexus registration when you no longer have nexus in a state.

Jurisdiction Rates

Configure tax rates for each jurisdiction level (state, county, city, district).

• Add rates with + Add Rate, selecting state, jurisdiction level, name, rate percentage, and effective date.
• Summary cards at the top show the combined rate per state (state + county + city + district).
• Edit rates to update the percentage or set an end date. Deactivate rates that are no longer current.

Exemption Certificates

Track customer tax exemption certificates.

• Add certificates with + Add Certificate, selecting the customer (searchable dropdown), state, exemption type, and dates.
• Certificates expiring within 30 days show an “Expiring Soon” badge; expired certificates are highlighted in red.
• Revoke a certificate when it is no longer valid (soft delete: sets status to revoked).

Remittance Tracking

Track sales tax remittance filings to state jurisdictions.

• Automatic generation: Remittance obligations are auto-generated daily by the scheduler based on each nexus registration’s filing_frequency (monthly, quarterly, or annual). No manual creation needed for standard filing periods.
• Manual creation: Add remittance records with + Add Remittance for non-standard filing periods or adjustments.
• Tax amounts (gross taxable, exempt sales, tax collected) are computed automatically from invoice line tax records for the filing period and jurisdiction.
• Overdue filings (pending past due date) are highlighted in red with a warning icon.
• Deadline warnings are logged when remittances are due within 14 days.
• Records are sorted with overdue items first, then by due date ascending.

Quarterly Tax Estimates

Compute estimated taxes from GL data based on your entity type and tax brackets.

List estimates:

Filter by tax_year.

Compute estimate:

Fields: - tax_year (required) - quarter (required, 1-4)

Requires a configured Company Profile for the selected/default entity. Computes from GL data: - Gross income for the quarter - Deductible expenses - Net taxable income - Estimated SE tax, income tax, and total

Record payment against estimate:

Fields: - amount_cents (required, > 0) - payment_date (required) - payment_method (required)

Entity-Aware Tax Summary

Computes entity-type-aware tax summary using GL data. Automatically reads entity type and officer salary from Company Profile. Supports: sole proprietorship, LLC (single/multi-member), S-corp, C-corp, partnership.

For multi-member LLCs and partnerships, includes per-member allocation based on active member count and ownership percentages.

Filing Readiness

The Tax Reporting page now opens on a filing-readiness control plane for the selected filing year.

Use it to answer: - whether the year is actually ready to file - which blockers or review items remain open - what the next deadline is - whether the annual package is blocked by open fiscal periods

The readiness checklist combines: - company-profile presence - tax-table freshness - compliance-calendar and obligation coverage - 1099 review state - annual-package controls

From the same page you can jump into: - 1099 Preview - Generate 1099s - Compliance Calendar if you have keystone.tax.view - Annual Package if you have keystone.reports.view

Filing Completion Handoff

If you have keystone.accounting.manage, the filing readiness card also exposes a filing-completion handoff form.

Route:

Use it to record one of these handoff states on the annual filing obligation: - completed when the filing is done and the result is final - recovered when a previous failure has been cleared and the filing is ready to re-submit - retry_scheduled when a submission failed and a retry window has been set - blocked when filing is still blocked and you want the auditable result captured

The handoff stores: - submission reference - retry reason - next retry time - the auditable result snapshot on the annual filing obligation

This is a control record, not IRS e-file transport. The annual filing obligation is the source of truth for the recorded result.

Direct Filing Transport

If you have keystone.accounting.manage, the filing readiness card exposes a direct filing transport form only after the filing-completion handoff is completed or recovered and the readiness checklist is clean.

Route:

When transport is locked, the card shows a truthful message instead of a submit path.

Use it to record one of these transport states on the annual filing obligation: - submitted when the filing has been sent and is in flight - recovered when a previous transport failure has been cleared and the filing is ready to resubmit - retry_scheduled when transport failed and a retry window has been set - blocked when transport is still blocked and you want the auditable result captured - completed when the transport result is final and the submission is fully recorded

The transport stores: - submission reference - failure reason - next retry time - the auditable transport result snapshot on the annual filing obligation

Transport state is recorded on the same annual filing obligation as the completion handoff, and the annual filing obligation remains the source of truth for the recorded result.

Preview and Generation

Preview vendors qualifying for 1099:

Lists vendors who meet the IRS reporting threshold for the selected tax year. Combines payments from both expense records and bill payments. Tax IDs are masked. The threshold is $600 for tax years through 2025 and $2,000 for 2026 and later.

Generate 1099 data:

Parameters: - force – override stale tax table gate (default: false) - include_full_tin – show full TINs instead of masked (requires keystone.accounting.manage)

Blocks if tax bracket tables are stale (unless forced). Returns vendor list with payment totals and TINs.

Financial Obligations Calendar

Keystone tracks recurring financial obligations (tax filings, estimated payments, annual reports, etc.) to ensure nothing is missed.

Generate Obligations for a Year

Fields: - tax_year (required)

Idempotent – generates standard obligations for the year (quarterly estimated taxes, annual filings, etc.). Does not duplicate if already generated.

List Obligations

Optional filter:

Current scope note:

Obligation Statuses

Status	Description
scheduled	Not yet started
in_progress	Work underway
blocked	Waiting on a dependency or exception review
ready_for_review	Ready for operator review
completed	Done
overdue	Past due date

Update an Obligation

Update status, description, or link to close runs/estimates.

Annual Reporting Package

The annual package generates a CPA-ready bundle of financial reports for tax preparation.

Generate Package

Fields: - tax_year (required) - force – bypass stale tax table check (default: false)

Retrieve Package

Pass force=true to bypass tax table staleness check.

Package Contents

Section	Description
freshness_check	Tax bracket staleness status
year_end_trial_balance	Trial balance as of Dec 31
income_statement	Full P&L for the year
balance_sheet	Balance sheet as of Dec 31
deduction_schedule	Tax deductions by category
depreciation_schedule	Asset depreciation detail
tax_payment_ledger	All tax payments made during the year
vendor_1099_candidates	Vendors meeting the IRS 1099 reporting threshold
k1_summary	K-1 data for each LLC member
evidence_links	Links to supporting documents