This article is the bridge between what Gluten Hero does inside the app and what happens when you sit down (or, more often, exchange email) with the CPA or tax professional who actually puts your return together. The in-app report is built to be self-explanatory at first glance and detailed underneath. Most of the workflow is straightforward. A few pieces are worth pre-staging so the conversation is faster.
The article assumes you already have a year (or part of a year) of receipts logged in Gluten Hero, and that you have a CPA or tax professional you work with on your annual return. If you are still deciding whether to track at all, the newly-diagnosed playbook is the better starting point. If you want to understand the source material your CPA or tax professional is working from, the Publication 502 article is that read.
What's in the report
When you tap Share Report in the app, the system generates two attachments and sends them to whatever email address you provide. The first is a PDF: a multi-page summary that shows the year's gluten-free premium, the comparable-basket math behind it, a category breakdown of where the premium concentrated (bread, pasta, specialty flours, restaurants, and so on), a travel summary if you logged any medical-related mileage, and a medical-expense summary if you logged anything in that section. The second attachment is a CSV with the full line-item detail: every receipt, every item, every comparable pair, every category tag. The PDF is the document your CPA or tax professional will read. The CSV is the document they will use if they need to pull a particular item or audit a particular month.
The email itself comes from reports@glutenhero.net and the reply-to is set to your own email address, so any response your CPA or tax professional sends lands directly in your inbox rather than disappearing into Gluten Hero. The body of the email is short and explanatory. You can add a personal note in the Share Report dialog before sending. Most people use the note slot for context like "first year I've tracked this; let me know if you need anything else" or "we should be ready to itemize this year."
The Share Report flow does not currently remember the recipient address between sends. You type it in once for each year-end send. That is a phase-two follow-up item.
When to send
The realistic answer for most households is mid-to-late January, after you've logged December and reviewed the year's totals on the Reports tab, and before your CPA or tax professional enters peak season in March. Sending early gives them room to read the report carefully, ask any clarifying questions, and decide how to handle the celiac line items in the context of your full return. Sending the week before the filing deadline produces a worse conversation, not because the report is harder to read in April but because the professional you're sending it to is at maximum load and the back-and-forth gets compressed.
If you've never sent the report to this particular professional before, mid-December is also reasonable. A short note that reads "I've been tracking gluten-free grocery premiums and medical expenses this year and I'll send the year-end report in January; here is a quick overview so you know what's coming" gives them a chance to flag in advance whether they want anything specific (a sample of receipts, the underlying CSV, a separate breakdown by quarter). Some professionals will appreciate the heads-up; others will simply file the note and wait for the real report. Either response is informative.
What your CPA or tax professional will likely ask
There are three or four common questions, and pre-staging the answers makes the conversation shorter.
One: do you have a written diagnosis and a written instruction to follow a gluten-free diet? The answer is yes if your medical record contains a celiac diagnosis (typically positive serology plus biopsy, or the equivalent in your physician's practice) and a chart note or letter that says, in some form, "lifelong strict gluten-free diet." If you don't have the chart note in writing, the clinical-letter article walks how to ask your physician for one. Most physicians will produce the letter quickly when asked; it's a routine request.
Two: how did you arrive at the premium number? The answer is the comparable basket. For each gluten-free item you log, Gluten Hero asks for both the price you paid and the price of the comparable regular-wheat item on the same shelf (same brand if possible, same size, same trip). The premium for that item is the difference. Items flagged as GF-Only (xanthan gum, certified gluten-free oats, specialty flours, anything that has no regular-wheat counterpart) are counted at full purchase price because there is no comparable to subtract. The full methodology is in the comparable-basket article. Most professionals familiar with the celiac question will recognize the framework immediately; if yours is new to it, the article itself is worth forwarding.
Three: did you include restaurant meals? The honest answer depends on whether you logged them. Restaurant tracking is structurally coarser than grocery tracking because a check doesn't itemize gluten-free pricing against a regular menu price, and Publication 502 has no clean rule for the celiac premium portion of a restaurant meal. Some CPAs and tax professionals accept a flagged restaurant total with a reasonable estimate of the celiac portion; some prefer to leave restaurant meals out of the substantiation entirely. The eating-out article walks the limit. The professional decides what to do with what you logged.
Four (sometimes): can I see a sample of the underlying receipts? Yes. The CSV attachment includes every line. If the professional wants to see the actual receipt images for a few specific items, those live in the app under the receipt entry; you can screenshot or export them as needed. Most professionals don't request this in a normal year; some prefer to see a sample the first year they work with the report.
After the first year
The second year is faster. The professional already knows the framework, the report shape is familiar, and the substantiation chain (diagnosis, prescribed diet, receipts, Schedule A) doesn't need to be re-explained. The only thing that typically changes year to year is the household's full medical-expense picture, which is what determines whether the stack clears 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income for the year. Some years the gluten-free premium alone won't clear the floor, but it stacks on top of every other qualifying medical expense (insurance premiums not paid pre-tax, prescription co-pays, dental work, mileage to medical appointments). The Reports tab in Gluten Hero shows the running total against the 7.5 percent line so you can see where you stand mid-year.
If you change CPAs or tax professionals between years, the report itself is the easiest handover document. Send the prior year's PDF and CSV to the new professional with a short note explaining what you've been tracking and why. The framework re-introduces itself.
What this article is not
It is not legal or tax preparation. The substantiation chain, the comparable-basket methodology, and the timing guidance above are workflow recommendations that have held up across the celiac households Gluten Hero has tracked. The application to your actual return is a professional-level decision that depends on facts the app doesn't see (your full medical-expense picture, your filing status, your itemize-versus-standard-deduction math, the specifics of your physician's documentation). That decision belongs with your CPA or tax professional.
It is not a guarantee that the report will be accepted as-is. Most professionals will read the report, ask one or two of the questions above, and either accept the numbers or work with you to refine them. A small number of professionals will be unfamiliar with the celiac substantiation framework and may want to read the source material themselves before signing off on the return. That is reasonable; the Publication 502 article is written to be forwardable for exactly that case.
What this article is, is the workflow checklist for getting a year of tracking out of the app and into the hands of the person who turns it into a filed return. The structure stays the same year over year. The first time through is the slow one. Every year after, it's a single email, a brief reply, and a return that includes a number you could see coming all year.