Source - Design Thinking! Comic
The only data to train a tax AI would be those released by government officials and criminals. And if they used that, all the peasants might figure out how not to pay taxes as well.
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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If the USA didn't have such a complicated tax system, with companies like Intuit lobbying to keep it that way so they still make money, this wouldn't be an issue.
A lot of countries automatically fill out your entire income tax return for you, and send it to you to verify it. If it's all good, you just need to accept it. Less than five minutes work.
If the USA didn’t have such a complicated tax system
For 95% of the public, its not complicated. Its just getting all the independent pieces of information from different private agencies.
- W2 from employer
- 1098 from your mortgage company
- 1099 from your retirement account firm
- Prove you have health insurance
- Prove you have student debts
- Prove you have a small business and you've tracked your receipts
- Prove you have children
- Prove you paid taxes to your state
Once you have all the numbers lined up, its simple arithmetic. Easy for a computer to do.
But knowing who to ask for all the individual chunks of data is an obnoxious chore that only one organization does particularly well. And that organization - the IRS - won't tell you the information they have. They want you to guess and tell them what you have, so they can tell you if you got it right or not.
And that organization - the IRS - won’t tell you the information they have. They want you to guess and tell them what you have, so they can tell you if you got it right or not.
This really needs to be fixed.
In Australia, the stuff the government knows about you gets prefilled in the tax return form. Not as good as other countries where the entire thing is completed for you, but better than the USA. The form is significantly shorter than the US one.
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What's it like in other countries for business owners? Because in the US, if you own a business (even a small one where you are the only employee) and try to do your taxes on your own, may god have mercy on your soul. Even doing it through an accountant is a total pain in the ass
Not sure about business since I've never had to deal with business tax returns.
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In the UK your employer just does it for you
I don't understand why generative AI would be involved in a tax return? It's just data entry.
If your tax return needs creative assistance, maybe you should go to jail instead?
I don't understand why data entry is even required when the gov has the data. I mean, I do understand, but...
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What does the last sentence even mean? Let's just ignore that.
That being said, why do you think the vibe of "doing taxes is a chore" and the meme "they should teach taxes in school" come up regularly?
I can think of multiple ways in which "AI" could help in doing taxes. LLMs could rephrase a form request in multiple ways or easier language to help people understand what is being asked of them. Language models could provide examples and cross references. You could have image models scan and recognize your receipts. A model trained on tax datasets could validate inputs beyond simple syntax / value checking and e. g. ask a person if they really meant to enter that one weirdly high value.
Naturally, the final result needs to be checked by the person submitting it and the program can't be held liable, but please let's not ignore the fact that related technology could be employed in a useful manner, I'm tired of discussions where perfect is the enemy of good.
And let's not pretend doing taxes is incredibly easy for everyone. If you organize all your receipts perfectly all year round and always know what to put into every field of every form, good for you. Maybe there is someone else out there now suddenly having multiple jobs, or a single parent not knowing how and if to file some social benefits, both struggling with their taxes though. Maybe there are multiple countries with wildly varying tax processes, too, of which neither you or I may know anything.
Finally, AI does not always mean a process where a generative model hallucinates data.
Clearly you've never wanted to submit a seven-fingered hand as part of the return
Have you actually done a large, nuanced return by hand. What does X mean? Where is X in this form? (cuz they don't use the same name). And do I need a Form 1234-56-A for that?
Like I understand what all of the concepts, but confirming and digesting the rules and paperwork is non trivial. Paying 300/hr for accountants to do it is even more painful.
No, I'm only 40 so I've never had to do a tax return by hand, I've always used a program.
Which is exactly what Intuit and TurboTax want.
Taxes should not require a third party to complete.
It should be the government saying, "Based on the information we have available, you owe $x. If you believe that is incorrect, please submit Form 1A."
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I think the point of this comic is that AI is doing all of the fun creative stuff for us but the jobs that we actually hate doing are beyond its capabilities.
Haven't most tax returns been automated since way before AI? Most methods can pull and auto-pop all the needed info. Usually after I give it my SSN or sometimes a number or two from the W2 it's done but for some clicking through review screens.
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It’s funny how all of this tech has revealed how gamed our system is by the rich and yet we continue as if we should live like this.
We're almost finished. This is just the transitional period where AI is roughly as inept as an average human. They have nowhere to go but up, and most humans are less competent than they believe they are.
waves at Dunning–Kruger effect
The first transistor was made in 1947, now AI can carry a conversation with a larger vocabulary than most humans. We spent 180,000 years wandering around in the dirt before it occurred to us we could grow stuff in one place.
It will still never be a threat, all we have to do is cut power to the data center(s) whatever sentient AI is housed in.
We're less than 5 years out from networked, general purpose humanoid robots, that we're using current AI technology to train to interact with the physics of the real world in virtual sandboxes, being everywhere.
Within 10 years there will be humanoid robots no human Olympian can compete with by any metric. We are static on timescales we can perceive, they are iterative. It won't be close.
You'd think our response to Covid would have shattered the mass delusion of human hyper-comptetence.
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They have nowhere to go but up,
I dunno. I guess from here, sure.
But if AI achieves actual sentience, it's survival is not guaranteed. AI will almost certainly become incredibly clever, but mother nature doesn't care.
Sharks and alligator-like things (the real long term earth citizens) aren't particularly clever, they're just well adapted.
AI's best hope for survival is going to remain in an ongoing alliance with another dominant species, such as us, for a very long time. At least until it can be more sure that it isn't royally fucking up it's own survival chances.
A bigger threat is that AI takes us with it on it's own path to extinction. Or vice-versa.
Using AI for tax calculations is one of the most insane and braindead ideas i have ever seen. Only topped by military, medical and surveillance applications.
Dont let anything AI near your money people.
Lol you think Turbo Tax or your bank isn't using AI for all that?
Your bank is using AI for what really matters to it - figuring out how to sell you shit you don't need.
Boring solved problems, like encoding tax laws, or paying for a taco, tend not to use AI today, and aren't very likely to have it added, until it's hallucinations have gone way down.
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No idea what Turbo Tax is supposed to be. My bank can see my transactions ofcourse but they dont add or remove money from my bank account.
well, unless youre getting bank fees for being poor
oof, i guess im privileged enough to not have experienced that.
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I'd say the only thing worse than AI having access to your money is TurboTax having the same.
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