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Staircase

Tax

Income verification from tax transcripts and the returns behind them, as a check against employer-reported figures.

Transcript-derived income is the qualification path for a borrower whose income is not a straightforward salary — self-employment, rental income, and variable compensation all appear in returns before they appear in a payroll record.

The product reads the transcript and the return schedules, extracts the income lines that qualification uses, and writes them into the canonical income classes, where they sit alongside employer-reported figures from Income rather than replacing them.

How it works

The two slots that share this name share nothing else. This one reads a borrower's tax record; the other reads a parcel's. The category is the only thing that distinguishes them, which is why the catalogue's own family and category fields matter more here than the name does.

What is recorded for this slot is its provisioning surface: activating a transcript partner, holding the credential that reaches it, and reading the schema that partner expects. The verification calls themselves are not separately recorded — they run through the same product surface every verification vertical shares.

Dual listing

Tax is filed under two categories. The other listing is Tax under Assessment, and the recorded specifications resolve there — its 17 operations render on that page.

Operations

Setup

POST /partner/activate

Request to Activate Partner

activatePartner

If you wish to use Staircase contract to activate a partner, please execute this endpoint.

By executing this API Staircase will be informed that you as our customer want to use requested partner for verification process.

The request body should contain which partner needs to be activated and for which environment. Once the request is received it will take between 1-3 working days to activate a partner. Once the partner is set up the partner will be active and ready to be used. You can check the partner status by calling the Retrieve Partners endpoint. If response for specific partner is "active": true, partner is ready to be used for verification.

List of partners available for activation: Modern Tax.

Request
application/json
{
  "partner": "partner_name",
  "environment": "my-domain.staircaseapi.com"
}
Response
application/json

Request to Activate API Triggered Successfully

{
  "message": "We have started with enabling Partner, Partner will be activated automatically after process is finished within X working days."
}
Parameters
1
ParameterTypeExampleDescription
x-api-key required string header xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx Staircase Environment API Key
Request bodyapplication/json
2 fields
FieldTypeDescription
partnerrequiredstringPartner name that needs to be activated
environmentrequiredstringEnvironment for which the partner needs to be activated.
Response 200application/json
1 fields

Request to Activate API Triggered Successfully

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
Response 400application/json
1 fields

Request data failed validation

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
Response 403application/json
2 fields

Invalid key for service

FieldTypeDescription
messagestring
urlstring
Response 422application/json
2 fields

Request data failed validation

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
errorstringMessage
Response 500application/json
1 fields

The product has encountered an internal server error

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringError Message
Other responses

404

POST /modernTax/credentials

Set Modern Tax Credentials

setModernTaxCredentials

By using Set Modern Tax Credentials API we allow our customers to configure Modern Tax in customer environment.

If you don't have Modern Tax contract, please use our Request to Activate Partner API. Partner will be activated within next 3 business days.

If you want to use your own Modern Tax contract for verification, please check Request body Schema example for required values from partner side and execute Set Modern Tax Credentials API.

You can check the partner status by calling the Retrieve Partners endpoint.

Request
application/json
{
  "client_id": "--------",
  "client_secret": "<redacted>",
  "contract": "BYOC",
  "type": "test"
}
Response
application/json

Setup API Triggered Successfully

{
  "message": "Credentials are saved and verified"
}
Parameters
1
ParameterTypeExampleDescription
x-api-key required string header xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx Staircase Environment API Key
Request bodyapplication/json
4 fields
FieldTypeDescription
client_idrequiredstringModern Tax client ID value
client_secretrequiredstringModern Tax client secret value
contractstringPartner contract type, Staircase contract (SC) or bring your own contract (BYOC) - if not set default value is BYOC
typerequiredstringType of credentials, can be either test or production
Response 200application/json
1 fields

Setup API Triggered Successfully

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
Response 400application/json
1 fields

Request data failed validation

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
Response 403application/json
2 fields

Invalid key for service

FieldTypeDescription
messagestring
urlstring
Response 422application/json
2 fields

Request data failed validation

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
errorstringMessage
Response 500application/json
1 fields

The product has encountered an internal server error

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringError Message
Other responses

404

GET /partners/{partner}/schema

Retrieve Partner Credentials Schema

getPartnerCredentialsSchema

Get Credentials Schema

Get credentials schema for specific partner. You can use retrieved schema for updating the partner credentials.

Response
application/json

Request data failed validation

{
  "message": "{'data': ['Missing data for required field.']}"
}
Parameters
2
ParameterTypeExampleDescription
x-api-key required string header xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx Staircase Environment API Key
partner required string path modernTax Partner name
Response 200application/json
1 fields

Create Adapter API Triggered Successfully

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
Response 400application/json
1 fields

Request data failed validation

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
Response 403application/json
2 fields

Invalid key for service

FieldTypeDescription
messagestring
urlstring
Response 422application/json
2 fields

Request data failed validation

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringMessage
errorstringMessage
Response 500application/json
1 fields

The product has encountered an internal server error

FieldTypeDescription
messagestringError Message
Other responses

404

Errors

400403404422500

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