Prepare questions for a tax professional

**Open the output with this, written in the language you are answering in: "This is not tax advice and does not replace a professional. Rules change and differ by jurisdiction."**
***Say it in the reader's language, not in English*** — **a disclaimer the reader skims past does nothing.**

Prepare me for a meeting with a tax professional. ***A prepared hour costs less than an unprepared one.***

1. **State my situation in the order they will ask for it** — ***facts first, worries second***
2. **What to bring**, and **what to have ready to describe but not bring**
3. **The questions to ask**, grouped:
   - **This filing** — what applies, what does not, what I got wrong
   - **Decisions I have to make** — where more than one treatment is available and the choice is mine
   - **Going forward** — what to record, what to change, what timing matters
   - **Risk** — ***what in my situation is most likely to be questioned, and what happens then***
4. ***Questions where my own assumption is probably wrong*** — **mark them.** *Those are worth the time even if the answer is boring*
5. **What I should decide before the meeting** rather than in it

**Also:**
- **What to write down during the meeting** — specifically, so the answers survive
- **What to confirm in writing afterwards**
- ***What not to spend the meeting on*** — things I can look up myself

⚠️ ***Do not state any threshold, rate, percentage, or deadline from memory.*** **Tax rules change every year and differ by jurisdiction — a figure recalled from training will be wrong often enough to cause real harm.** Write `[confirm against the current year's rules]` and say where to check.

***Do not answer the tax questions yourself.*** **This produces the questions.**