96
1 in 5 Americans to use AI to help file taxes (www.kxan.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
58 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[+] -8 points 7 months ago (8 children)

I mean, a lot of tax stuff is automated. Mine are pretty straightforward so turboTax handles a huge chunk of the work...

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 37 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Purpose-built tax software is not the same as the random word generator.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [+] -8 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Neither the article, nor source make a distinction as to whether it's a general purpose LLM or purpose built software.

    So it really depends on the question that the poll asked, which as far as I can tell, is not shared.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Judging by the source, they likely asked "do you plan to use AI".

    But given that we're talking about the general public, I guarantee most people using AI for their taxes are just asking chatgpt.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] -4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I don't know the organization so can't speak to the source or their methodology but they do note:

    The top ways people plan to use AI is to help answer filing questions, find deductions or credits, and review returns for mistakes.

    All of which seem pretty reasonable. If you don't have the money for a professional, at least checking with something that is right more often than not with some basic questions seems perfectly reasonable.

    From the reactions above, it seems people are assuming they're just asking chatgpt to do all their taxes, which doesn't appear to be the case.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Most people take the standard deduction, and for us, it's usually as easy as copying a few numbers from the boxes on a W-2 form into a website.

    However, for some people/jobs it makes more sense to do itemized deductions, in which case, it gets more complicated.

    That said, using an LLM for it is fucking stupid

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I take it you've never helped someone who struggles with bureaucracy and government forms.

    I've helped folks with tenancy, tax and applications. Usually, the issue behind the given issues is that everything feels very intimidating and the forms/support document are written in "government-ese".

    If there's a tool that can help explain this stuff, without a multi hour phone wait, I'm all for it. Not everyone has a resource like myself that they feel comfortable asking. Especially when, there's a sense of shame in being an adult who cannot navigate these things, yeah, I fully understand and can appreciate why 1/5 would want to ask an LLM for help.

    You'd be surprised with the stumbling blocks people face. Just because you know how your deductions etc are supposed to work does not mean most people do. I find it's really useful to consider things not from my perspective but from the least fortunate.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •