Using AI to do your taxes? Experts share top tips and warnings

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- As W-2s begin arriving in mailboxes and taxpayers rush to file their returns, financial experts are urging caution when turning to artificial intelligence for help.

7 On Your Side spoke with a financial expert, who said while many people rely on AI for everyday tasks, it may not be the best tool for calculating or filing taxes.

"It's important to remember that things like math and factual accuracy have historically not been AI's strong suit," said Sam Taube of NerdWallet. "I mean, up until recently, even the cutting-edge models couldn't really be counted on to do basic arithmetic."

Sure, AI is great for creating images and answering questions, but 2+2 doesn't always equal 4.

Despite those concerns, more taxpayers are using AI to navigate their finances, according to Taube.

"NerdWallet did a poll a few months ago with the Harris Poll, and found that more than 40% of people are using AI to help them plan out their personal finances, which might includes taxes," Taube said.

"Suppose you have some long, complicated tax form and you need to find just a couple of important numbers for filling out your taxes ... what you could do is take the PDF or maybe even take a picture of the paper form, and feed that into an AI and say, 'Hey, can you summarize and just pull out the numbers I need?"

Experts recommend that taxpayers double check any AI generated data, make sure the information you provide is accurate, and doble check the results.