Individual Keep · $20 a year
Form 1040 continuity for a person or a household.
What it keeps
- Identity
- You, your spouse, your dependents — names, relationships, identifiers held with care, addresses with their effective dates.
- Relationships
- Employers, brokers, lenders, the adoption itself. Each a durable record, so next year's W-2 or 1099 is matched to a known party.
- Documents
- W-2, 1099-DIV, -INT, -NEC, -MISC, -B, 1098, K-1, prior returns, IRS and state letters. The original kept; the reading kept; your confirmation kept.
- Carryforwards
- Capital loss, charitable contribution, credit carryforwards, and — explicitly — the adoption credit. Each with origin, use, adjustments and balance.
- Filing history
- Which returns were filed, when, with what, and what each one created or consumed. Elections and basis where they matter.
- Confirmations
- What you confirmed, what you corrected, what was imported and from where. Provenance on every fact that matters.
The Adoption Credit Test
A credit that outlives the form it appeared on.
An unused adoption credit may carry into later years. Most software makes you find last year's Form 8839 and copy a number. Keep holds the credit as a tax attribute of its own: the year it originated, the amounts determined and used, what remains, the adoption record and documents it rests on, and any amendment that changed it.
The same shape serves a capital loss carryforward, a charitable contribution carryforward, or a suspended loss. Whether a balance may be used in a given year is Gideon Tax's call, under that year's law. Keep makes the call possible.
| Year | Event | Source | Amount | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Originated | Capital loss carryforward, from the 2026 Form 1040 (Schedule D) | +$12,000 | $12,000 |
| 2027 | Consumed | Applied on the 2027 return — Schedule D, line 21 | −$3,000 | $9,000 |
| 2028 | Adjusted | 2027 return amended; consumption restated to $2,400. Original entry kept. | +$600 | $9,600 |
The balance is derived from the rows above it, never edited in place. Each row keeps its source return and supporting documents. Whether the balance may be used in a given year is decided by that year's tax law in Gideon Tax — not assumed because it existed last year.
A year, concretely
What February looks like.
Documents arrive
You photograph the W-2 and drop in two 1099-DIV PDFs. Keep matches them to the employer and the brokers it already knows, reads each, and flags one low-confidence digit.
Keep notices an absence
Last year there were three brokerage forms; this year, two. Keep asks whether that account closed or the form is still coming — a signal, not an accusation.
Tax drafts, you review
Gideon Tax pulls the confirmed facts and the adoption credit balance, applies this year's rules, and shows you what changed. You answer two questions and authorize.
Honest scope
If your return is one W-2 and nothing ever changes, Keep saves you re-entry and not much more — the value compounds with dependents, multiple payers, a move, a carryforward, or an adoption. The subscription pays for software, storage, structured data, document processing and automated verification. It does not include human tax preparation or advice; Gideon Tax and credentialed preparers remain separately priced.
$20 a year. Renews automatically. Leaves with you.
Your accumulated history is exportable in a documented form, with the original documents. Keep is meant to be worth keeping, not hard to leave.