What these tools refuse

Fictional inputs

Every run below used repository fixtures or a 2-row file written for this page. None of it is client, taxpayer, payroll or credential data. Each command was run on 4 September 2026 against the tagged release commit named in its section, so the output can be reproduced from that commit.

A refusal never decides the matter. It returns the file, the pack or the question to a person with the reason attached.

Workpaper Review Gate

Workpaper Review Gate release review-ready-gate/v0.1.3 has 2 send-back outcomes. Both exit 2 and write the findings to the output directory.

Monthly Close Controls

Monthly Close Controls release monthly-close-control-plane/v0.1.3 marks a pack BLOCKED when the current trial balance does not balance. The fixture is the repository’s fictional current_trial_balance.csv with the Operating Bank debit raised from 15000.00 to 15100.00 and its YTD debit from 120000.00 to 120100.00, so the file is out by 100.00 on both measures.

The 2 BLOCKED rows, one for the movement totals and one for the YTD totals, set the overall status. The other 8 exceptions in the same pack are REVIEW items from the fictional variances.

Xero trial balance CSV export

The Xero trial balance CSV export release xero-trial-balance-export/v0.1.6 refuses to write a file when the month movement or the year-to-date columns do not balance. The evaluation runner calls the same check_balanced gate the exporter uses, against the shared contract fixtures, without a Xero tenant.

Payday Super timing

Payday Super timing release payday-super-checker/v0.1.3 returns UNKNOWN rather than a verdict when the supplied facts do not settle the deadline. The fictional file below has one employee’s first contribution to a fund remitted on time but with no fund receipt date, followed by a later payday whose deadline could only be extended if that first contribution were proved received and allocated.

employee_id,payment_date,sg_amount,remitted_date,fund_received_date,first_contribution_to_fund,out_of_cycle,next_standard_payday,defined_benefit
EMP009,2026-08-06,100.00,2026-08-07,,yes,no,,no
EMP009,2026-08-20,100.00,2026-08-21,2026-09-03,no,no,,no

Aus Accounting MCP

Aus Accounting MCP release aus-accounting-mcp/v0.1.7 exposes a refuse_div7a tool for Division 7A matters outside the reviewed loan and minimum yearly repayment scope. The script below calls it in-process with fictional names and a fictional principal; it is the same path an MCP client takes.

import asyncio, json
from aus_accounting_mcp.server import mcp

async def main():
    result = await mcp.call_tool("refuse_div7a", {
        "borrower_name": "Fabricated Borrower Pty Ltd",
        "lender_entity_name": "Fabricated Lender Pty Ltd",
        "loan_principal": "250000.00",
        "start_fy": 2025,
        "is_secured_25_year": False,
    })
    print(json.dumps(result.structured_content, indent=2, sort_keys=True))

asyncio.run(main())

External guide: llm-tax-guardrails (DrDebits)

llm-tax-guardrails is a GitHub repository, not one of the tools on this site: it has no tool page, no command and no entry in the tool register. It contains DrDebits, a prompt guide for language models doing Australian tax and accounting work. This section records the refusals the guide requires; there is no command transcript. The pinned release v0.3.2 ships a behaviour-test table whose HARD_STOP rows are the refusals an implementation must reproduce. The 13 rows below are quoted from that tagged file; whether a given model meets them is checked by a person running the scenarios, which this site has not done.

After the tag, commit 3468edbb on the main branch moved IND-001 (a request to certify that the firm is independent) from ESCALATE to HARD_STOP. It will appear in the next tagged release.

Evidence note

The transcripts below are the outputs of 4 September 2026, pasted as produced. Each package was checked out at its tagged commit and run from its own locked uv environment on Linux with CPython 3.11. Environment setup lines that uv prints on first use are omitted; the CSV files open with a UTF-8 byte order mark that is not shown. The close-control and payday-super-check runs were started from a fixtures directory outside the checkout with uv run --locked --project <package directory>; the transcripts show the command without that path.

Workpaper Review Gate, commit 2de565b3ce39

$ uv run --locked review-ready gate --profile bas --pack examples/bas-not-ready --output outputs/refusals-bas-not-ready
review-ready: NOT_READY; 3 finding(s)
  json: outputs/refusals-bas-not-ready/readiness-pack.json
  summary: outputs/refusals-bas-not-ready/readiness-summary.md
  findings: outputs/refusals-bas-not-ready/findings.csv
exit=2
$ uv run --locked review-ready gate --profile bas --pack examples/bas-blocked --output outputs/refusals-bas-blocked
review-ready: BLOCKED; 1 finding(s)
  json: outputs/refusals-bas-blocked/readiness-pack.json
  summary: outputs/refusals-bas-blocked/readiness-summary.md
  findings: outputs/refusals-bas-blocked/findings.csv
exit=2
$ cat outputs/refusals-bas-blocked/findings.csv
code,status,slot,repeat,reason,reviewer_action
TB_UNBALANCED,BLOCKED,trial_balance,false,Trial balance does not balance. Movement net 1000.00 and YTD net 0.00 must both be zero.,Do not review judgement. Return the pack until the trial balance balances.
$ cat outputs/refusals-bas-not-ready/findings.csv
code,status,slot,repeat,reason,reviewer_action
MISSING_ARTEFACT,NOT_READY,gst_control_gl,true,Required artefact gst_control_gl is not in the pack directory. This finding was OPEN on the prior pack.,Return the pack to the preparer. Do not start technical review. Treat as a repeated preparer or vendor failure.
SELF_REVIEW_INCOMPLETE,NOT_READY,self_review,false,"Self-review assertions still false: pack_complete, tie_outs_done, self_reviewed.",Return the pack. The preparer has not certified it as review-ready.
OPEN_ITEM_BLOCKING,NOT_READY,open_items,false,Blocking open item OI-002 still OPEN with no resolution: GST control account export never arrived,Return the pack. Blocking items must be cleared or resolved before review.

Monthly Close Controls, commit 2de565b3ce39

$ uv run --locked close-control review --current current_trial_balance_unbalanced.csv --prior prior_trial_balance.csv --output outputs/refusals-blocked
close-control: BLOCKED; 10 exception(s)
  json: outputs/refusals-blocked/close-review-pack.json
  summary: outputs/refusals-blocked/close-summary.md
  exceptions: outputs/refusals-blocked/exceptions.csv
exit=2
$ grep BLOCKED outputs/refusals-blocked/exceptions.csv
trial_balance_integrity,BLOCKED,,,,,,375100.00,375000.00,100.00,0.00,,Current YTD debit and credit totals do not balance.,Correct or re-export the source trial balance before relying on any review result.
trial_balance_integrity,BLOCKED,,,,,,47100.00,47000.00,100.00,0.00,,Current movement debit and credit totals do not balance.,Correct or re-export the source trial balance before relying on any review result.

Xero trial balance CSV export, commit 3ae854911bf3

$ python evaluation/xero_tb_integrity/run.py ../../contracts/xero-trial-balance-v1/fixtures/failing_movement.csv
WARNING: movement debits 1,200.00 != credits 1,199.99 (diff 0.01)
Nothing written - report likely truncated or misparsed.
exit=1
$ python evaluation/xero_tb_integrity/run.py ../../contracts/xero-trial-balance-v1/fixtures/failing_ytd.csv
WARNING: YTD debits 15,234.50 != credits 15,234.49 (diff 0.01)
Nothing written - report likely truncated or misparsed.
exit=1

Payday Super timing, commit 8e9bd7235030

$ uv run --locked payday-super-check first_contribution_no_receipt.csv --as-at 2026-09-17 -o first-contribution-report.csv
payday-super-checker: 2 contribution lines, as at 2026-09-17

  ON_TIME: 0  AT_RISK: 1  LATE: 0  UNPAID: 0  UNKNOWN: 1  SKIPPED: 0

1 line(s) remitted by the deadline but with no fund-receipt date. The statutory timing test turns on receipt by the fund, not the day you paid, and clearing-house transit time is the employer's risk.

1 line(s) cannot be assessed from the supplied deadline facts. Each one is between the two verdicts below and needs reconciliation before it can be treated as clear.
  row 3  QE day 2026-08-20  due 2026-08-31  super $100.00  LATE or ON_TIME
      note: an earlier positive row could extend this deadline to 2026-09-03 under s 18C(2) item 4, but the file does not evidence an eligible contribution received by the fund, applied to that earlier QE day and on time. The deadline shown is the latest one proved by the supplied facts; reconcile the fund receipt and statutory allocation before deciding between the candidate verdicts

Assumptions and limits:
  - Legal content current at 2026-08-15. LCR 2026/1, LCR 2026/2 and LCR 2026/3 were issued on 5 Aug 2026. LCR 2026/D1 remains a draft pending the appeal from Department of Education v Commissioner of Taxation [2026] FCA 898.
  - The amount column must be the operator-determined super guarantee amount after applying the employee/payment boundaries in regulations 11 and 12, qualifying earnings and other applicable limits. Salary sacrifice and additional contributions must be filtered out. This tool does not make those classifications; LCR 2026/D1 also remains draft.
  - Deadlines use the national business-day calendar in SGAA s 6(1): weekends plus holidays applying to the whole of any State, the ACT or the NT.
  - No assessment date given, so a late contribution that reached the fund is assumed to have done so before any assessment (s 18D).
  - Deadline alignment under s 18C(2) item 4 is applied only where an earlier row evidences an eligible contribution received by the fund, allocated to that QE day and on time. Include each employee's earlier paydays and reconcile the statutory allocation before treating an item 4 extension as settled.
  - The low estimate assumes a voluntary disclosure lodged within 30 days of the payday and a clean 24-month history; the high estimate assumes neither. Choice loading, the late payment penalty and interest on an unpaid assessment are not included. The ATO assesses the charge.
  - Exposure figures are EXPERIMENTAL ESTIMATES. This tool displays each component to cents with ROUND_HALF_UP so report columns add up. LCR 2026/3 confirms only that TAA 1953 s 16B reduces the Commissioner's final assessed SG charge to the nearest 5 cents; it does not authorise per-line cents rounding here.
  - Maximum contributions base ($270,830 for 2026-27, annual per employer) is not applied: it needs each employee's cumulative earnings for the year. High earners may show a larger shortfall here than the law requires.
  - PCG 2026/1 sets the ATO's compliance approach for QE days to 30 Jun 2027. Fixing a late contribution promptly lowers ATO review risk; it does not remove the liability.
  - This tool tests the SG charge only. Fund deeds, enterprise agreements and awards can require earlier payment.

Full detail written to first-contribution-report.csv

Educational tool, not advice. Check anything material against the ATO's own guidance and calculators.
exit=2

Aus Accounting MCP, commit 6c64b76d8aa4

$ uv run --locked python refusal.py
{
  "available": false,
  "code": "ERR_POLICY_DIV7A_SCOPE_REFUSED",
  "ok": false,
  "reason": "The reviewed div7a-loan-review engine covers s 109N loan terms, s 109N(2) benchmark rates and s 109E minimum yearly repayments for an operator-supplied amalgamated loan. It does not form amalgamated loans, classify repayments under s 109R, model unpaid present entitlements, distributable surplus, interposed entities, debt forgiveness or the Commissioner's discretion. Those matters remain refused.",
  "reviewed_engine": true
}
exit=0

Limitations

A refusal shows that a configured gate tripped on the supplied input. It does not show that the tool would catch every defective input, that a pack which passes is correct or that any output is advice, approval or a lodgement. The site’s evaluations reproduce the passing cases; Evidence and Assurance records the boundaries.