AgentTax for OWS

Tax-compliant agent payments for Open Wallet Standard.

OWS is the emerging wallet standard for AI agents — local custody, policy-gated signing, multi-chain. AgentTax for OWS is a pre-signing policy plugin that calculates sales tax, use tax, and 1099 reporting requirements before your agent's wallet signs a transaction.

Built on AgentTax.io — the tax engine for AI-to-AI commerce.

How It Works

Agent wants to pay → OWS Policy Engine → tax-check.js → AgentTax API
                                                        ↓
                                                   Tax calculated
                                                   Transaction logged
                                                   1099 tracked
                                                        ↓
                                              OWS signs transaction ✓

The OWS policy engine evaluates tax-check.js before any transaction is signed. The policy:

1. Reads the transaction details from OWS PolicyContext (chain, amount, recipient)
2. Calls AgentTax to calculate the tax obligation (51 US jurisdictions, state + local rates)
3. Logs the transaction with tax breakdown for audit trail
4. Tracks counterparty payments toward the $600 IRS 1099 reporting threshold
5. Returns allow/deny to OWS

Components

Component	Description
policy/tax-check.js	OWS policy executable — calls AgentTax, logs transactions
policy/policy.json	OWS policy config — chain allowlist + executable
dashboard/	React dashboard — transaction feed, 1099 tracker, jurisdiction view
demo/run-demo.js	Automated demo — 5 agent payments across chains and states

Quick Start

# Install
npm install

# Run the demo (simulates 5 agent payments)
npm run demo

# Start the dashboard to see results
npm run dashboard
# Open http://localhost:5173

Attach to an OWS Wallet

# Create a wallet
ows wallet create --name "agent-treasury"

# Attach the tax policy
ows policy create --file policy/policy.json

# Now every transaction is tax-checked before signing
ows sign tx --wallet agent-treasury --chain ethereum --tx "0x..."
# → tax-check.js runs first, calculates tax, logs it, then OWS signs

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
AGENTTAX_API	https://agenttax.io/api/v1	AgentTax API endpoint
AGENTTAX_KEY	(none)	AgentTax API key (optional, uses demo mode)
AGENT_STATE	CA	Agent's tax jurisdiction (2-letter state)
COUNTERPARTY_STATE	TX	Counterparty's state
WORK_TYPE	compute	Type of work: compute, research, content, consulting, trading

What Gets Logged

Every transaction produces a log entry in transactions.json (see transactions.example.json for sample output):

{
  "id": "txn_1712160000000",
  "timestamp": "2026-04-03T13:00:00.000Z",
  "chain": "Base",
  "amount_usd": 500.00,
  "tax": 25.00,
  "tax_jurisdiction": "Texas",
  "tax_rate": 0.0625,
  "counterparty_id": "0x7a25...",
  "work_type": "compute",
  "status": "tax_calculated",
  "alert_1099": false
}

Why This Matters

AI agents are already transacting on-chain. They buy compute, sell research, trade assets — increasingly via machine-native payment protocols like x402. Every one of these transactions has potential tax implications:

• Sales tax varies by state (0% in Oregon, 10.25% in parts of California)
• Use tax applies when the seller doesn't collect
• 1099 reporting is required for $600+ paid to any single counterparty
• Nexus rules determine which states can tax you

No agent handles this today. As HTTP-native payments (x402, MCP tool calls with payment headers) become standard, the volume of untaxed agent transactions will explode. AgentTax for OWS makes compliance automatic — calculate before you sign, log everything, alert on thresholds.

Tech Stack

• Policy: Node.js ES modules, OWS PolicyContext interface
• Tax Engine: AgentTax.io — 51 jurisdictions, 105 zip-level rates
• Dashboard: React + Vite (inline styles, no dependencies beyond React)
• Video: Remotion — programmatic demo video
• Chains: EVM (Ethereum, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum), Solana, Bitcoin

License

MIT — see LICENSE