00:00Right now, the biggest source of AI is actually integration into regular tax products.
00:08And that's not the kind of thing that we need to be that worried about.
00:11However, what we're also seeing is a lot of people turning to online tools like ChatGBT
00:18or Google's Gemini in order to try and do some of their tax work.
00:22And that's where things are a little more concerning.
00:25This is so often the case when we're talking about AI, there are potential benefits, but
00:30also risks.
00:31So if we look at the potential benefits first, what are some of the positive ways that AI
00:36can be used for people in this scenario?
00:40Preparing your taxes has quite a lot of dull, repetitive work.
00:44Something like going through and categorising all of your transactions for your deductions,
00:50according to what type of category they might fit in, whether it's a legitimate business
00:54expense or not, that sort of thing is something that AI is very well suited towards helping
01:00out with.
01:01You can run it over a list of your transactions and it can make a guess at what's right for
01:06a deduction and what's not.
01:08However, when you start to go beyond that and try and get it to do the actual numeric calculations,
01:15that's where things can go very wrong.
01:16And you might not even notice that it's actually producing the wrong numbers.
01:20Yeah, so what kind of risks could people face if they did use it in that way?
01:27You could face the same types of risks that you face when making an error on your tax return.
01:33However, you can't turn around to the ATO and say, the AI did it.
01:37Ultimately, you're responsible for what goes in your tax return.
01:41And so using these tools is not an excuse for having it go wrong.
01:45So is it a case here that it really is, I suppose, a case by case basis, depending on
01:50how complex your tax return is going to be?
01:52People really need to apply some caution here.
01:56The general AI tools are not going to be the right fit for doing all of your taxes.
02:02That's where you really ought to be using an accountant or specialised tax software or
02:07the ATO's website.
02:09Where it can be useful is if you need help in arranging your tax affairs and you're willing
02:14to actually do the work to check what comes out of the AI.
02:18There one of the online AI tools may be able to speed up part of your work.
02:23And how do you see the future of AI developing in this area?
02:28This is one of the places that's very well suited to not very complex AI, but the sorts
02:34of algorithms that we already use on a day-to-day basis in all sorts of places.
02:40Tax software that is specially tailored to doing your taxes can use fairly advanced algorithms,
02:47but in a very efficient and reliable way.
02:50So I think that AI in tax is here to stay, but that it's going to increasingly become something
02:56normal such that we don't even notice we're actually using AI at its heart.
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