Intuit has a market cap of ~$80B and there are others. Intuit aggressively lobbies against free tax filing or automated tax filing by IRS, which gets all the info anyways.
For starters, the average person doesn't use LLMs in any capacity beyond "ChatGPT" or whatever chatbot interface they happen to have latched on to.
I don't know the financial penalties of a faulty Tax filing in America since this is just done automatically for individuals in Sweden by our IRS-equivalent. But I assume this is something you don't want to mess up. If so, apply an general stochasticity argument for why AI isn't end-to-end responsible for much at all where details and correctness really matters.
This is a common misconception. The IRS is generally reasonable. They will send you notices about mistakes on your tax forms. I think it's the tax filing industry that perpetuates the myth that making mistakes on your tax form can lead to you going to jail.
Having said that, I used Claude to do my taxes this year. I generally use the free fillable forms provided by the IRS so I don't use a program that tries to abstract it all away. It was much easier to do with Claude than manually this year.
Interesting! As I said I've only heard complaints from Americans since I have no insight into how the tax filing works. If just general Claude is capable of doing it, then that is just as satisfying of an answer to why there isn't specialized AI tax software.
During fiscal year 2024, IRS spent about $1.5 billion to modernize systems that handle some of its most critical taxpayer services and business functions.
...
In March 2025, IRS paused these programs to reevaluate priorities and start new IT modernization efforts.
This pattern has been repeating for decades.
Spend billions. Throw results in trash. Repeat.
Also, lets not forget, 99% of the IRS could be abolished with a simplified tax code and process, and the reason that doesn't happen, is because then 99% of grift would stop as well.
If government is the wizard of oz, the tax code are the levers behind the curtain that get pulled to modify the publics behavior.
If private companies are handling electronic filings, that private sector activity is taxable. Its an asset to the IRS. If the IRS is doing it internally, its a liability and an expense.
Can you be more specific on how you expect AI to do this?
If you’re thinking by an independent, motivated do-gooder, TurboTax costs around $100 for most people, and few people are going to use some untested solution to save that small amount of money, vs. the scare of being fully liable for one’s own tax mistakes. FreeTaxUSA is even cheaper.
I wouldn't trust any genAI system (that is available to me, anyway) to go anywhere near critical things, or anywhere near very personal information such as finances or health. I know I'm far from the only one who feels this way. Maybe there are enough people who feel similarly that it limits the size of the market for such a thing.
That’s definitely not always the case. My CPA made a mistake on my state taxes and they explicitly told me I was liable because it was my tax filing. I suppose they could have been lying to me but I doubt it.
Yes, you are, in the end, responsible for your own taxes the filings. If a mistake was made and you owe additional taxes, you have to pay them as well as any penalties, etc. But if you used a CPA, you have the option to sue to recover any loss they caused you through negligence.
Give it a little time, AI (SI, whatever) has only started getting good very recently without hallucinating on everything. This year I plan to use Turbotax as a first pass and then have the then-current SOTA model review it. Next year, maybe the same, but then I'd be surprised if I ever pay Turbotax another cent after 2027.
Trust. Noone would trust and AI system with this task because it actually matters and a mistake can cost alot here, of course there are people who would blindly trust it but anyone normal wouldn't.
I found the consumer facing "tax professionals" to be indifferent and apparently, nearly incompetent. Like, I walked into a tax office in my neighborhood and the certified dude could not answer a question without typing it into the Search Box on his computer.
In contrast, I found Gemini to be pretty good at directing me to verify my own answers at IRS.gov. It was able to answer correctly but of course, Gemini is not a tax attorney so I did need to pore over the official documents myself.
IRS.gov is really good about documenting everything in plain, accessible English. Gemini is really good about surfacing summaries and overviews and answering thorny questions, that would probably cost $$$ from a CPA.
IRS.gov is perhaps the agency that has the most to offer the consumer in the Information Age with an open web. I don't know how people accessed IRS Publications before website downloads, but today it's easy as pie for IRS to just blat out all their info and their website is really easy to use. It's almost as if they want to empower the taxpayer to know how to file a good return and pay them the correct amounts...
I still used commercial tax software to produce the return; my situation is not complex but essentially I just paid for convenience + peace of mind.
I had Claude fill out my forms on TurboTax and TaxAct, and got my estimated tax payments. And instead of paying the $150 to file, I had Claude go and fill the same forms out on FreeTaxUSA and compared the values and they were within a few dollars of the other platforms, and I filed.
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[ 19.4 ms ] story [ 164 ms ] threadI don't know the financial penalties of a faulty Tax filing in America since this is just done automatically for individuals in Sweden by our IRS-equivalent. But I assume this is something you don't want to mess up. If so, apply an general stochasticity argument for why AI isn't end-to-end responsible for much at all where details and correctness really matters.
Having said that, I used Claude to do my taxes this year. I generally use the free fillable forms provided by the IRS so I don't use a program that tries to abstract it all away. It was much easier to do with Claude than manually this year.
You are trying to solve a politics and people problem with non deterministic, unnecessary technology.
“Why does the system insist on inefficiency to suck $80B/year out of taxpayer pockets?” is easy to answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
If we want better outcomes, we need to elect better people. It’s that simple. Better luck next time.
Exactly this.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107611
During fiscal year 2024, IRS spent about $1.5 billion to modernize systems that handle some of its most critical taxpayer services and business functions.
...
In March 2025, IRS paused these programs to reevaluate priorities and start new IT modernization efforts.
This pattern has been repeating for decades.
Spend billions. Throw results in trash. Repeat.
Also, lets not forget, 99% of the IRS could be abolished with a simplified tax code and process, and the reason that doesn't happen, is because then 99% of grift would stop as well.
If government is the wizard of oz, the tax code are the levers behind the curtain that get pulled to modify the publics behavior.
If private companies are handling electronic filings, that private sector activity is taxable. Its an asset to the IRS. If the IRS is doing it internally, its a liability and an expense.
Your work, your transactions, your expenses in complying with the law, your penalties for non-compliance, your headaches and suffering, etc, etc etc.
These are all assets to the IRS. You serve them.
But blockchain will solve political corruption
If you’re thinking by an independent, motivated do-gooder, TurboTax costs around $100 for most people, and few people are going to use some untested solution to save that small amount of money, vs. the scare of being fully liable for one’s own tax mistakes. FreeTaxUSA is even cheaper.
Yes, you are, in the end, responsible for your own taxes the filings. If a mistake was made and you owe additional taxes, you have to pay them as well as any penalties, etc. But if you used a CPA, you have the option to sue to recover any loss they caused you through negligence.
In contrast, I found Gemini to be pretty good at directing me to verify my own answers at IRS.gov. It was able to answer correctly but of course, Gemini is not a tax attorney so I did need to pore over the official documents myself.
IRS.gov is really good about documenting everything in plain, accessible English. Gemini is really good about surfacing summaries and overviews and answering thorny questions, that would probably cost $$$ from a CPA.
IRS.gov is perhaps the agency that has the most to offer the consumer in the Information Age with an open web. I don't know how people accessed IRS Publications before website downloads, but today it's easy as pie for IRS to just blat out all their info and their website is really easy to use. It's almost as if they want to empower the taxpayer to know how to file a good return and pay them the correct amounts...
I still used commercial tax software to produce the return; my situation is not complex but essentially I just paid for convenience + peace of mind.
I had Claude fill out my forms on TurboTax and TaxAct, and got my estimated tax payments. And instead of paying the $150 to file, I had Claude go and fill the same forms out on FreeTaxUSA and compared the values and they were within a few dollars of the other platforms, and I filed.
Building a free / libre / open modernized e file client stack to handle a wide range of the forms.
The IRS provides all the specs as XML.
Java / soap / xml. The stack that runs the world but so many people don’t want to touch legacy tech.