Should you rely on AI to do your taxes? Experts warn of risks.
About 1 in 4 Americans are using AI chatbots to prepare their tax returns, but experts warn the tools can produce outdated or inaccurate guidance.
Americans are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Claude to help prepare their tax returns, but experts warn the technology can deliver outdated or inaccurate guidance, raising the risk of costly mistakes.
About 26% of people are now using AI to file their 2025 tax returns during the current tax season, up from 11% in the prior year, according to polling from Adobe. In a post on X, Elon Musk said that his Grok AI chatbot "can help with your taxes." He was responding to another X user who said in a post that the tool helped boost a tax refund by $1,400.
But tax experts warn that Americans may be putting themselves at risk by relying on AI, as chatbots can provide outdated or misleading guidance. For example, recent tax changes under the Republicans' "one big beautiful bill act," or OBBBA, may not be reflected in AI-generated responses.
"Using AI for taxes is not new. It is integrated into tax preparation software, that's how they generate returns," Caroline Bruckner, tax professor at American University's Kogod School of Business, told CBS News. "But you want to be really careful about how you use the AIs that have become ubiquitous. AI on its own is not capable of preparing an accurate tax return."
That's in part because government websites, including IRS.gov, contain a lot of outdated information that doesn't reflect changes in the tax law. Large language models could draw from such material and present it to users as up-to-date.
"Our tax law is so incredibly complex, and the website has to have information that was true in 2020 as well as 2025, but tax laws and tax breaks have changed so much in five years," Bruckner said. "That's where generative AI can really cause problems if you just ask it a general question about deductions — it may give you a summary of deductions that are no longer applicable, or in effect for this tax year."