Husband to @arianakukors. Wahoo➡️Longhorn➡️CPA. Primarily tax compliance motivated ramblings. Sometimes other ramblings.
Hermosa Beach, CA
Joined August 2010
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Another day of trying to figure out how to comply w IRC 7216.
I think the most frustrating part of this exercise is that it’s all technicality gotchas with no real material enhancement in actual data security. ShareFile vs Google Sheets vs ChatGPT vs web-based tax software etc
Am I understanding correctly that you can't use non-tax specific AI platforms* (Chat, Claude, etc) without a 7216 consent AND you can't deny service based on failure to consent or every consent you have is no longer valid? Am I losing my mind?
*No model training versions assumed
Pounding my head into a table is more enjoyable than trying to understand how to properly navigate AI usage within 7216 as a small tax firm.
So if tax software had an anonymous mode where it hid all PII (or AI safe mode) and then the docs were run through an anonymizer before fed into Claude, Chat, etc, wouldn’t that pretty much work for AI prep? What am I missing?
It’s fascinating to see all the extremely confident responses that AI can do everything for them now while being blissfully unaware of what my post actually meant.
Roger nails it here. We have to have very clear guidelines as to what is needed for us to use AI and be in compliance immediately. We’re otherwise going to be left bringing a knife to a gun fight.
Okay, I'll say it. The AICPA and IRS are doing serious damage to tax pros as it relates to AI.
Every day there is another "I'm firing my idiot CPA because my frontier model found an error" post.
There is a lot of good, but dated, legislation governing what your tax pro can send to a model.
You, as the taxpayer, do not have that same restriction.
Yes we have client consent processes that can help, but tax pros still need to be using the right tier to protect that data and remain compliant.
The tax code keeps growing, context windows for frontier models keep expanding, and the bar for being a tax pro keeps getting raised.
We're in this weird spot in the profession where our clients have more technology leverage than we do because of bureaucracy.
It's a terrible position to be in and the longer out of touch generations are in charge of making the rules the worse it will get.
I hope everyone enjoyed their last tax cycle in which AI didn’t nitpick the shit out of every little thing for 9.5 months straight. Yesterday was undoubtedly the day the music died in tax compliance.
I’m pretty convinced we’re going to long for a day where we didn’t have AI to go into the weeds of literally everything. Ignorance was bliss.
The fact that we haven’t figured out a way to associate dependents with the person(s) rightfully claiming them is mind numbing.
Not really one to wade into the tech area much, but non-browser based tax software has maybe 1-2 more tax years before they're completely useless.
Has a single person looked at the new Box 19, Code D and been like: "You know what, I'm glad they added this. It's not redundant clutter. Super helpful. Thanks, IRS!"
This time every year is amazes me how many K-1 issuers are still going strong with their Former 2% Misc Ded protest via Box 13, Code L. It's been 8 years and it's now permanent. It's time to move on. I mean, at least go Code ZZ if you just can't.