Utilizing ChatGPT as a Tax Assistance Tool: A Practical Guide Sheneya Wilson, MS, MBA, CPA, Fola Financial LLC
Questioning whether you need to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) in your tax practice today is like an accountant 20 years ago deciding whether to use tax preparation software or continue to prepare paper tax returns. Thus, putting AI tools into practice should be something that practitioners embrace.
What is ChatGPT? Think Google, with a human-like consciousness — a search engine with the ability to put information into context and make it more useful. Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT (chat.openai.com) is an AI-powered language model trained on an extensive dataset, enabling it to comprehend and respond to a wide array of queries.
How to Use ChatGPT? Think of ChatGPT as your really smart best friend of whom you can ask any question. The more time you spend interacting and communicating with this friend, the better the conversations usually are and the better advice you’ll receive. Utilizing ChatGPT can be broken into the following four steps: 1.
Define your objective. Clearly state what you want to achieve by using ChatGPT, such as getting answers to questions or solving specific problems.
2.
Provide clear and specific prompts. Ask ChatGPT clear and specific questions or provide detailed instructions to get accurate and relevant responses.
3.
Assess quality and evaluate accuracy. Check the responses from ChatGPT to ensure they are reliable and align with what you know or have learned.
4.
Iterate to customize output as needed. Make adjustments to your questions or prompts and try different approaches to get better results from ChatGPT.
Now let’s apply these steps in practice.
ChatGPT as a Tax Assistance Tool Here’s an example scenario: Kevin, a tax practitioner, has a client who wants to understand the tax implications of the sale of an investment property while in the process of filing his tax returns with Kevin’s firm. Kevin has no prior experience working with this type of client transaction and decides to proactively seek advice from ChatGPT. He walks through the four-step process: illustration: © iStock/DrAfter123, photo: © iStock/gorodenkoff
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