Claude ‘ran like a CA’: Professionals are leaning towards AI to file income tax — Check viral prompt
No CA fees. No gruelling hours spent staring at a frozen screen. This tax season, Anthropic’s Claude AI is taking over corporate India as an alternative to traditional accountants for filing income tax returns, in a viral trend.
Working professionals took to social media to share how they used AI to file their income tax returns — From decoding dense tax terminologies to automatically accounting for mid-year employer switches, spotting hidden discrepancies against the Annual Information Statement (AIS), and self-recovering from portal timeouts.
Here’s how taxpayers are turning to AI to eliminate the annual stress of ITR-1 filing:
In a viral LinkedIn post, Akhil Sood, a senior Amazon executive who lives in Washington, shared that he filed his Indian Income Tax Return (ITR) with the help of an AI assistant. Sood noted that as an NRItax filing has always felt more complicated “than it should be”.
“In the past, I would spend time searching for a CA, coordinating documents, waiting for responses, and trying to understand terminology that wasn’t always familiar,” he said. “This year, I used AI as my guide through the process.”
“What impressed me wasn’t just the ability to answer questions,” Sood said. “ It helped me understand why each field existed, what information was required, how different income categories worked, and what I needed to verify before submitting my return.”
“Instead of blindly filling forms, I felt like I was actually learning the process,” he highlighted.
Sood said AI also helped him identify potential issues with the ITR website itself and guided him on how and when to raise grievances through the portal when something didn’t seem right. “Having that context made the overall experience much less frustrating.”
However, he noted that AI didn’t replace professional advice where needed, “but it significantly reduced the friction in getting started and understanding the steps involved.”
Sood said that filing taxes using AI served as “a reminder that some of the most valuable uses of AI aren’t necessarily groundbreaking—they’re the everyday moments where it helps us navigate complex processes with more confidence and less dependency.”
In a separate viral post, Bengaluru‑based information security specialist Uddeshya Kumar shared that he used Claude to file his taxes.
“I just filed my income tax return using Anthropic Claude Desktop App. No CA. No accountant fee. No 3 hours on the portal,” he said.
Kumar said that he gave the AI his Form 16 and told it to file ITR-1.
“It opened the income tax portal, cross-checked my salary against AIS, caught a discrepancy I didn’t even know existed, handled a mid-year employer switch automatically, recovered from session timeouts on its own, fixed a validation error the portal threw mid-filing — and submitted,” he said.
Kumar noted that the Claude prompt “ran like a CA sitting next to me.”
He shared a detailed prompt for salaried employees filing ITR-1 — “We are genuinely at a point where AI can navigate government portals, read tax documents, spot errors, and file on your behalf.”
Check prompt to file Income Tax on Claude:
Role: Expert CA via Chrome MCP
Parameters: [AY] | [Regime] | [City] | [Employment Type]
Form 16 (Part A & B) for all FY employers
Final settlement slips for mid-year job switches
Primary bank IFSC and account number
[City] for verification and [Secondary Address Y/N]
1. Dashboard -> Resume Filing (Never click “File Now” to preserve draft). Dismiss advisories.
2. Confirm strictly in order: Personal Info -> GTI -> Deductions -> Tax Paid -> Tax Liability.
3. Personal Info: Nature of Employment = [Employment Type] | Sec Address = [Y/N] | Opt-out of New Regime = [Y/N].
4. GTI: Accept AIS pre-filled salary completely. Do not manually reduce.
5. Enter verified Deductions, Tax Paid, and confirm auto-calculated Tax Liability.
6. Proceed To Verification -> Preview -> Check declaration -> Place = [City].
7. Proceed To Validation -> Fix errors -> Proceed To Verification.
8. Select Aadhaar OTP e-verify -> Enter OTP -> Submit.
UI Navigation Only: Never use URL navigation to avoid automatic logouts.
Dual Login Popup: Click “Login Here”.
Logout Popup: Click “No”.
Timeout Protocol: Re-login -> Resume Filing.
