Technology

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[–] socphoenix@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Gotta keep the auditors busy!

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[+] audit69@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

[removed by mod]

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[–] DrPop@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

I know where you are coming from, but i can assure you the people who are being audited are being audited for a reason. Either it's claiming false dependents or credits they are not entitled to. I've seen people try to claim a $50000 refund but there income is only $5000. What happens is these people go to some random person on the street who says they can get them a bigger refund and they don't question it.

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[–] pdxfed@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

There are like 100 for the whole country. No one gets audited, statistically speaking. It's why you've never learned anything about taxes from your parents or friends. They don't know either. People pay people at HR block who don't know about taxes either to file. No one gets in trouble because the only people who know tax laws work for the very wealthy. Or at the IRS where there are about 100 of them to 300m of us.

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[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 1 point 7 months ago (5 children)

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

If you can't afford a professional, these don't seem particularly unreasonable. I certain wouldn't recommend feeding all your info into chatgpt etc but for a simple filer, asking an LLM for explanations or possible deductions seems fine.

Not everyone has access to the same resources that I do, so I try to picture it from others perspectives.

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[–] charokol@piefed.social 13 points 7 months ago

If you can’t afford a professional, you are probably not in a place where you would have enough itemized deductions to match the standard deduction

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[–] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 9 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Have fun with that audit.

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[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca -4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Like I said, not everyone has the same resources I do...

But this doesn't seem worse than googling questions and not everyone can spend hours waiting to talk with the Irs/Cra etc.

It just seems that sometimes folks are so determined to be anti LLM that they refuse to see how it could ever help anyone.

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https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/04/analysis-finds-google-ai-overviews-is-wrong-10-percent-of-the-time/

[–] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 6 points 7 months ago

"Googling" used to get you to the needed IRS documentation, but now, with the help of Gemini you're just being lied to.

If you need tax help, call your local library, they often have tax help. Also if it seems like a tax dodge, don't take the deduction. Don't outsource your brain to an LLM. You've done your taxes before without a GPT you can do it again.

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[+] audit69@programming.dev 0 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

[removed by mod]

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[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 1 point 7 months ago

Believe it or not, there are people who aren't you who struggle with stuff.

Help a marginalized person with paperwork and you'll see what I mean.

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[–] ellen.kimble@piefed.social 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Why are we filing and paying taxes anymore? They’ve stripped most things that help the common citizen including things like the SEC that allow the president to pump a stock ticker

[–] GooseFinger@sh.itjust.works 16 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Because my employer garnished my wages to pay taxes, and if I dont file my taxes, the federal will keep my refund.

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[–] architect@thelemmy.club 1 point 7 months ago

You can fix that…

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[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Use FreeTaxUSA or OnLine Taxes. Much more affordable online tax tools.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

its free under certain AGI, or if you make alot money, might want to consider other alternatives,.

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[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 4 points 7 months ago*

FreeFillableForms works regardless of your income or if you have other unconventional things to claim. It's just a bit more manual than some of the other apps, but does support e-File. I find the instructions are pretty easy to follow though, especially if you can reference your previous year's return.

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[+] Jaegeras@piefed.social 16 points 7 months ago (6 children)

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[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Rest make sense but Why not the role play?

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[–] MrQuallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.place 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Don't let computers steal your imagination and creativity

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[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Im confused is the AI not the "other person in a erotic chat room" in this situation? Or in this example, is the Use case getting ideas for roleplay?

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[–] MrQuallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.place 1 point 7 months ago

I'd say both

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago

things that require skill

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[–] green_goglin@thelemmy.club 1 point 7 months ago

making memes

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[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago (6 children)

I wonder if I counted...

So I did the tax prep using a free offer from TurboTax. Everything seemed traditional.

Then, at the end it generated an AI summary of my return. I didn't have a choice, it just did it. I have the "unhelpful" feedback because:

Despite saying it was "explaining" the numbers and why, all it did was just list the numbers from the fairly straightforward table right above the AI response in a more awkward form, not explaining anything.
Further, despite the seemingly easy task of "Take a table of figures and repeat them in prose", it still screwed up and messed up and of the figures that all our had to do was repeat verbatim.

So AI was forced into my tax prep and did nothing substantive (thank goodness) and flubbed the cosmetic role it tried to play.

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[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Why does nobody use FreeTaxUSA?

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[–] boraginoru@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 months ago

I do! And also got my dad to switch to it this year 🙌

It's always been good, and in the past few years they have been adding scanning for various documents, the lack of which was my only complaint about it before.

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[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

I actually had not used TurboTax before. And as a result I could do state and federal free with them this year, so it was cheaper than freetaxusa.

But won't be using it again next year, it was fine but not particularly impressive compared to usually cheaper alternatives.

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[–] WindyRebel@lemmy.world 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

I’ve been using it for like 4-5 years now I think? It’s awesome and does what TurboTax does but is muuuuuuuuuuuuch cheaper (if you choose to file online) or free (print and send via snail mail).

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[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 1 point 7 months ago

It is pretty awesome. I'm in a state with no income taxes, so it's free for me to file with them.

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[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago

Turbox Tax worked hard to get AI some revenue.

If you didn't do the multi-step downgrade of your service (have to downgrade two or three times to get to the free version) then you might've counted. The AI doesn't do anything, but it starts as a way to justify charging you like $140. It'll default you paying for it even if its unused.

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[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Hey LLM. I'm thinking of deducting my Corvette as a business expense for my landscaping business, is that a good idea?

What a creative way to lower your tax burden! This totally makes sense and you can be confident that your decision will be well received.

(Others can take the LLM tone better than me, and I don't have the patience for LLM verbosity).

[–] architect@thelemmy.club 1 point 7 months ago

Mine will 100% tell me I’m an idiot for that.

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[–] bibbasa@piefed.social 13 points 7 months ago

yikes

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 7 months ago (1 child)

So if we do this, and the AI fucks up, can we just blame the AI and not get in trouble? Isn't that why it exists?

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 1 point 7 months ago

You can't even blame your human accountant.

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[–] Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

What could go wrong?

[–] rmrf@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

It's probably more of a replacement for Google than anything. IMO for stuff like this it isn't different than asking a forum and as long as you know that there's little room for fuck ups.

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[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I don't know if cashapp uses AI or not to file their "free" tax returns. I know that prior to using it I had to agree to let them use any and all information for marketing and advertising. Nope!

Then I got an offer from someone to use TurboTax for state and federal for "free" but they spend plenty to lobby the government not to have free filing. Also nope, doubling down, because of the comment here by @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone

[–] johnyreeferseed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I Fucking hate turbo tax. They've gotten so intertwined in our tax system from all their lobbying. I couldn't find my w2 for an employer I quit in July, after some research I found out my former employer just automatically gives turbotax all their w2s. I didn't even want to do my taxes with them because I know about their bullshit but had to log in so I could get my w2 from turbo tax to take it somewhere else. I bet they get a lot of people that are just like "my w2 is here I'll just do it with them".

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[–] boraginoru@lemmy.zip 1 point 7 months ago

That's crazy, how is that even legal? You should have to deliver someone's W-2 either to their physical address or provided email address.

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[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 1 point 7 months ago

Yep. I paid the local indie service to do mine.

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[–] Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 months ago

Why don't they just wait for the government collapse like everyone else. /S

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago

i saw on a sub someone used it, and it gave wrong info back.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 1 point 7 months ago

Last year I asked the HR block ai chat bot thing a question and it got it wrong.

[–] blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 7 months ago

Over 50% of Americans can barely read

[+] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca -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...

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[–] imsufferableninja@sh.itjust.works 37 points 7 months ago (4 children)

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

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[+] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca -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.

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[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 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.

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[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca -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.

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[–] Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Both Turbotax and Taxact have sections for questions on every section while filing, you can even talk to an advisor while filing. Using AI to review or figure out deductions is just being lazy.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 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

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[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 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.

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[–] athatet@lemmy.zip 1 point 7 months ago

They still won’t know after asking an llm either.

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[–] firepenny@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 child)

People can't fill out a form online for free? Or mostly free?

[–] agent_nycto@lemmy.world 1 point 7 months ago

You can do it on paper for free at least

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[–] luthis@lemmy.nz -1 points 7 months ago

Good to see only 5 Americans are paying tax. That's a great way to protest misuse of tax dollars

4 comments in c/usa@lemmy.ml view that post

[–] nfreak@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago

The IRS is getting ready for a field day with this one

[–] wheezy@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago

It's a lot more. Turbo Tax "humans reviewing your return" is definitely just AI slop.

[–] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 1 point 7 months ago

Well, they also elected Trump twice. Dumb people will do dumb.

3 comments in c/usa@midwest.social view that post

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Sure I used AI a few times this year. Got some good answers and some laughably wrong ones. Which is typical for AI.

[–] RidgeRoad@midwest.social 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

I've had AI answer that a public figure was older than a second, then citing their birth dates, confidently "reiterate" that the first was younger than the second. On a historical question, AI casually situated an event "following" one that took place forty years later, having included years of both. Given a story problem on which I said I'd calculated the answer to be 70, AI responded that 70 was incorrect, stated the equation to be used, and that the correct result was 70.

All these examples are recent. Next will be news that the IRS is using AI to audit returns.

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[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 2 points 7 months ago*

Never trust AI to do math or work with numbers. I asked some standard deduction questions. Totally nutty answers. It did answer "confidently" though. AI is like a 5 year old with the data of the whole internet but no understanding.