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arpinum | on: Dayjob: Tax – evaluating AI agents on 50 professional tax assignments
I'm also in a non-trivial tax situation, GPT Sol did better than my specialist accountant this year. It needed a lot of steering from me and about 2B tokens, but that is better than spending $3-4k in preparation fees. Total time to prepare and handle steering was still less than I normally spend on tax prep with my accountant.

I think what helped is giving it 100+ pdf and csv documents of my full situation so it knew everything about me and could cross-reference with all my bank statements.

markoman | parent | next
So, GPT Sol outputted tax return PDFs that you were able to submit to the IRS? (I'd imagine that you couldn't directly e-file like you could from TurboTax.)
arpinum | root | parent
Correct, it first did it in a spreadsheet, then filled out 59 pages of returns and supplement forms and I printed and posted it. It also filed my FBAR.
waiwai933 | root | parent | next
I don't know that I'd trust it with an FBAR given it's an interactive PDF myself, but good to hear that it was able to do it - maybe I'll get fed up doing the FBAR manually one year and trust an agent to do so.
arpinum | root | parent
They changed the FBAR page recently, no longer an interactive PDF.
waiwai933 | root | parent
Ah looks like there's both the PDF and online option; I filed with the PDF version because you can save your history but I guess if Claude can navigate and fill in the online option then I have less quibble about being able to keep progress. Thanks!
fn-mote | root | parent
Amazing story!! Honestly, thanks for sharing so completely.
quixoticelixer- | parent
Is it unusual for Americans to spend that much on tax returns?
alemanek | root | parent | next
Yeah for individual tax preparation that is pretty high. Most people get away with filing for $20-150. I used to have a CPA do my consulting business, tiny 1 person company, and personal taxes for $500.

I no longer do consulting on the side so I just use online tax software. It is about $150 but I do that more out of laziness as it integrates with my brokerage and payroll company to import everything automatically. Also I have carry forward losses and such that it already knows about.

Most people’s taxes are simpler than mine but I am sure there are lots of folks here with much more complex tax situations

arpinum | root | parent | next
I am not a normal case because I don't live in USA. The USA government estimates 50-80 hours to complete all my forms.

I have foreign income and foreign businesses, my partner has foreign income from two countries. The tax law is then based on tax treaties, most tax preparers do not have sufficient knowledge to complete a return, and tax software doesn't handle these cases.

The tax treaties are not clear, tax professionals will disagree on interpretation, and tax benefits in one country will not apply to another.

Then there is a thing called AMT, alternative minimum tax, which is a second way to calculate your taxes that you need to submit as well.

aprilthird2021 | root | parent
It's unusual to spend that much even for a small business tax returns except maybe in major cities