Completing your tax questionnaire
How to work through your questionnaire, including conditional questions, multi-state, and rental items that repeat each year.
Completing your tax questionnaire
Your tax questionnaire is the heart of Filing Readiness. It's a set of questions about your year — your income, your structure, anything that changed — and your answers tell us how to prepare your return and which documents to request. Working through it is the main thing we'll ask of you, and most of it is quick.
Your questionnaire lives with your Filing Readiness tasks. From your task list in the app, open your tax questionnaire and start answering — your tax contact will point you to it when it's time.
How to work through it
- Open your questionnaire from your task list and read each question as it comes.
- Answer honestly and completely. Your answers do real work — they decide how we prepare the return and what we ask you to upload, so an accurate answer now saves back-and-forth later.
- Watch for new document requests. As you answer, matching requests appear in your File Requests. You don't have to upload everything in one sitting — answer first, then gather documents as you go.
- Leave a comment when you're unsure rather than guessing. Your tax contact can clarify and you can move on.
- Finish the whole thing. Unanswered questions can hold up your return, so try to get to the end even if a few items need a follow-up.
Each answer can open a document request — answer one way and we ask for a specific form; answer another way and nothing is requested. That's by design, so you only gather what applies. See What documents you'll need to file for how that mechanism works.
Conditional questions
The questionnaire is smart, not flat. Many questions only matter if an earlier answer applies — so you'll see follow-ups appear based on what you've already told us, and you'll skip whole sections that don't fit your situation. If a question doesn't apply to you, answer it that way; you won't be pushed down a path that isn't yours.
This is also why two people's questionnaires can look quite different. The set of questions you see is tailored to your answers, not a one-size-fits-all form.
Filing in more than one state
If your business operates in or files in more than one state, the questionnaire will ask about that, and your answers can open state-specific requests — for example, an identifier a particular state needs in order to file there. Answer the state questions as completely as you can; getting the multi-state picture right up front keeps your return from stalling later.
If your structure changed this year — a new entity, an S-corp election, a change in ownership — flag it early. Those changes ripple through the whole return. See Tell us about entity changes before we file.
Rental items repeat each year
If you have rental or royalty income, your Schedule E questions are answered fresh for each filing year. Most of these questions are year-specific — days rented, properties bought or sold, how a vehicle or home office is used — so even if your situation barely changed, plan to confirm them again every year. It's quick once you've done it once, and it keeps each year's return accurate.