Plain-English tax explainer letters for tax advisers

The same questions come up every January: why is my bill higher, what is a payment on account, what records do I keep. If you write 30 such explanations a month and each takes 20 minutes, that's 600 minutes, 10 hours a month.

Use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to write a bank of plain-English template paragraphs on the topics clients ask about most, from your own wording and the GOV.UK guidance you paste in. Save them in a document or email snippets. When a client asks, you pick the paragraphs, add the client's own figures yourself and check against the computation. Leave client names, UTRs and figures out of the assistant.

A tax adviser in Glasgow answers about 30 client questions a month in the busy season, many on the same five topics. She builds templates once and tailors each reply.

About 5 hours a month saved (10 minutes x 30 letters = 300 minutes), worth around £200 if your time is worth £40 an hour. Cost is free to about £20 a month for one person; free plans have usage limits.

1. 1List the five to ten topics clients ask about most.
2. 2Paste the relevant GOV.UK text into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask for a short, plain-English paragraph for each.
3. 3Check every statement against the source and your own knowledge, and edit into your voice.
4. 4Store the approved paragraphs in one document with the date you last checked them.
5. 5Add the client's own figures yourself from your records and read the whole letter before sending.

• The assistant can state the wrong rule or rate. You are the adviser; check each paragraph against GOV.UK.
• Tax rules change. Date each template and review them whenever the rules change.
• Never paste UTRs, National Insurance numbers, names or figures into a consumer plan.
• Wording that tells a client what to do in their own situation is advice; make sure the figures and the conclusion are yours.