As Tax Deadline Approaches, Consumers Are Going to AI Before Filing

As the April 15 tax filing deadline draws near, a notable behavioral shift is underway. Consumers who once turned to TurboTax or a CPA as their first resource are now opening ChatGPT, Google Gemini or Claude to ask whether they qualify for the home office deduction, how to report freelance income or what their refund might look like this year. Artificial intelligence has not replaced tax software. But it has become, for millions of filers, the first stop in a process that carries legal and financial consequences.

The trend reflects a broader reorientation in how consumers approach money decisions. According to PYMNTS Intelligence, 62% of Gen Z consumers are open to using AI for financial planning guidance, a signal that generative AI is reshaping their expectations for real-time advice. That appetite for on-demand financial intelligence has migrated into tax season with little friction and considerable risk. As reported by Bloomberg, about a quarter of U.S. workers say they plan to use AI to help file their taxes this year, more than double the 11% who said the same last year, according to a survey by Adobe Inc.

AI as the First Touchpoint

The appeal is intuitive. Conversational AI tools offer something traditional tax software does not: the ability to ask open-ended questions in plain language and receive answers that do not require navigating a decision tree. As covered by Kiplinger, viral posts on social media have amplified the trend, with users sharing examples of asking AI chatbots to review their tax filings for deductions or credits that may have been overlooked.

Kiplinger reported that early IRS data indicate higher refunds than last year, with more than 36.5 million refunds totaling about $136.6 billion issued as of early March, and the average refund running roughly 10.6% higher than at the same point in 2025. That context makes the promise of AI unlocking additional refund money feel credible to ordinary filers.

As reported by Bloomberg, one user in the Bay Area used Claude Code to organize his tax documents into a structured spreadsheet for his accountant, describing the output as substantially better than what he had produced manually in prior years.

According to CBS, tax professionals say artificial intelligence can help consumers organize receipts, obtain plain-English explanations of tax concepts and identify deductions worth raising with a professional. The problem is where consumers stop. For a growing number, the chatbot conversation substitutes for the professional consultation rather than preceding it.

Where the Risks Accumulate

The limitations of AI as a tax tool are structural. As reported by The New York Times, a test of four AI chatbots, Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and xAI’s Grok, using eight fictional tax situations developed by tax-filing service TaxSlayer found that the tools miscalculated the refund or amount owed by an average of more than $2,000, even when provided with all necessary forms.

The New York Times attributed the failures to a fundamental design issue: AI chatbots do not understand the complex relationships among the pieces of information they process, and errors accumulate as tasks become more interconnected.

As reported by Bloomberg, tax professionals warn that chatbots can give bad planning advice based on outdated rules and frequently make mistakes reading figures from less standard documents such as K-1 and 1099 forms. Bloomberg also reported on one case in which a client faced IRS trouble after an AI tool incorrectly advised that cryptocurrency income below $3,000 did not need to be reported.

The consequences extend to privacy. McAfee warns that entering sensitive tax information into an AI chatbot is similar to submitting it to an online form, and that once data leaves a device, users lose control over how it may be stored or transmitted. Tax documents contain Social Security numbers, employer and income data, banking details and dependent information, making them among the highest-value targets for identity theft. And the filer bears all liability when AI-guided errors appear on a return.

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