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cover of episode TaxGPT's Revolution: The Evolution of Taxes (Sorry, TurboTax)

TaxGPT's Revolution: The Evolution of Taxes (Sorry, TurboTax)

2024/3/29
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No Priors AI

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This chapter explores how ChatGPT and AI are changing tax preparation. A company called MuseTax uses ChatGPT to improve tax filing, offering a faster and more efficient alternative to traditional methods. The company's background and funding are also discussed.
  • MuseTax uses ChatGPT to improve tax preparation.
  • The company received $350,000 in seed funding.
  • MuseTax aims to help users minimize their tax bills.

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Something I have been wishing ChatGPT will do ever since the very beginning, most of because of the task I absolutely hate. And I have had to do a lot of this lately, is taxes.

So today on the podcast, we are going to talk about how ChatGPT OpenAI is helping to revolutionize the tax code taxes, a company that is doing that, something that just happen in the wall street journal will be talking about a little bit of current events, some politicians on twitter, spicy stuff um and we're going to be going over how this is actually going to help us in the future. What some people are doing now talk about the implication. So without further, do let's dive into IT.

So a rid of the bad, a unch stuff can be talking about today is from the wall street journalist recently wrote an article about a company called the use tax. Now use tax essentially harnesses ChatGPT three and three point five and is using that to help you do your taxes Better. So the company is one of many across a range of industries as really started to um figure out how to use ChatGPT and pull IT into very practical use.

Kind of interesting because the CEO of muse tax, they said, you know we're looking at all these really fun ways that you can use um ChatGPT and A I and what not for different things and they like but at the end of the day, uh, we wanted to use IT for something really concrete and really useful so they decided to focus on tax. Um both of them had started out of new york, but both of them have a background in um accounting um and the company is one of many that is essentially using an A P I or what's called an an A P I just means application programing interface, right but essentially that just means they're playing in start into ChatGPT and some other software allegedly um and their kind of building on top of those technologies um to be able to use this. So they started back in february of twenty twenty two um meaning that these guys actually got this thing up and running before ah you know chat G P big launch to everybody so they won't been using what was formally called the vinci three um and they were using that to kind of help them.

And I ever actually think, you know, this is kind of the case with a lot of people that you would see having fully fledge products come out today. These guys were getting started with the vinci 2ChatGPT and now that um the honestly this is going to absolutely plod, but IT takes time and money to build out a fully fledged on functional company. And so I predict after tragic t we are going to see hundreds and thousands of these companies coming out that are going to really launch of next six months to a year.

Um because of all the hype, all the people that are in the space and working on and IT takes time for these people to fully flush the products. But people that were early to the game are getting rewarded. So one example, use tax.

Back in february, they launched they were both fied public accountants. They had a lot of years of experience in financial services. I think this is gna be A A format.

We see a lot of you know people have experienced one specific areas. They launch a product built on ChatGPT OpenAI in that specific vertical. And um the company essentially IT has a business to business model. So IT IT more um create partnerships with financial institutions. Um and it's pretty interesting like these guys were started with um I mean they both put in their own some of their own money and then they had around three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in precede capital from some early stage investors, including text stars, right which is like why commentor is like one of the premier biggest um tech incubators. And so they also have um the A I Operators fund and everywhere ventures which is formally known as the fund.

So all of those people are plugging in um mrs or mr horse port is the CEO amuse tax and currently they're raising two million dollars in a seat around which is you know interesting to see how if pull that off uh based on the project tory when they got started what they are building um there three hundred and fifty K I believe they'll be able to pull that off. I mean they got a street journal ticket, so that doesn't help um raise exposure to new investors. I don't know what will I think they'll be able to pull this off um and this is important because these guys are gonna helping us to you know whether to them or another copy cat or another person in this ticket.

A massive ships in the tax code itself. And all this has come after years of um um years of different people, critically, how taxes are done specifically in america. I'm not super familiar with other countries um but essentially user is will be able to feed their tax returns and transaction data into muse tax um and that's going to keep track of all the latest updates to the tax code.

So um you know other financial service companies are also plug into um and their system essentially recommends ways that a user can help keep their tax bills to a minimum. This is interesting because you know with COVID, there was a lot of different tax changes that happened. Oh, you know people are saying that a lot of different accountants are missing some of those tax changes, incentives right off sea.

And so um mister horse ford said that this is really what their model is trained to do to be more of the day and process information a lot faster than the average human content. Um even if they're really experienced some use tax usually can uh make tax recommendations in twenty to thirty seconds, which is super fast, sometimes take forty five seconds um I mean which is really not a big deal. I mean, I just did all my taxes on turbo tax.

I think you know everyone in states here and last a few days might have been through that processes. Taxes were due on the fifteen and and you know I can take no five to seven hours for comparable advice and i'm according to thanks. And you know like when you're talking about five or seven hours, I think you know there's recently a tweet by Elizabeth war that said, um you know IT takes the average american twelve hours to do their taxes.

I'm not sure what should ve got that number from SHE might be completely accurate. SHE was more just getting roasted on twitter because um you know he was saying that that was all due to corrupt corporations, uh, which a lot of people are criticizing saying that is also due to politicians like herself for any other politicians, right or left, that are creating a lot of these complex tax codes that are taking people a long time to do so. And I just corporations I mean, what she's referred to, his turbotax, which if you think about a turtle, this I guess is reliant because turbo tax is pretty threatened by use tax, probably in a lot of these other companies.

But turbo tax, uh in into IT who runs turbo tax, they love the government to keep a lot attacking the same because they obviously make a tony money during tax season, whatever, as to follow the taxes through them. I personally paid, I think like a hundred and eighty box or something to just file some taxes through the and that's just their fee or whatever. So you know they are making this off.

A lot of people. I think the average that on american pays is about two hundred dollars, two thousand taxes. Whether they are going with um a bunch of different in house are like in uh where they are actually going to a place where they're doing something.

These online things like turbotax, it's it's about two hundred box that you are pain. So use tax is going to be able to focus on capturing some of that with their new service they have. Um and they said that currently it's all on GPT three GPT three point five, but they plan to move to the latest version, GPT four, which I think is not relevant news.

I know i've been included in the most street journal article considering everyone's going to be moving to GPT for its just a matter of when they they released their A P I which is currently not available for everyone. And as soon as that launches, everyone gonna get IT because GPT four is literally ten times cheaper. The drop in the Price by ten ex from just the previous version of ChatGPT.

So and is also a way Better. So it's way Better at tenth of the cost. I don't know anyone is to talk about that they're switching to IT or act like that's a feature since everyone is onna, do IT whenever one gets the A P I whatever anyway um IT is you know it's pretty interesting because they apparently use tax, has a bunch of procedure res in place to kind of oversee the responses generated by AI and according to their CEO.

He said, we are familiar with the oversight needed when managing A I responses um and apparently he says that his cofounder had prior experience ed building an AI chatbot called ask my uncle sam now again, I don't know. I guess everyone got a kind of like building and credibility, but that in and of itself in my opinion and I guess I haven't researched too much about ask manco sams chat but that is not necessarily that impressive considering anyone can um here's something crazy you can do if you did not know this um cora, who is the massive question answer website on the internet. They have something called poll, which is their own number one, some of their own A I tools and also they plug into ChatGPT and also they plug into anthropic.

It's the only consumer facing way you can use anthropy c which is a massive ChatGPT competitive go checkout. But something interesting they launched, which I bring this up, uh, talking about my earlier point about why ask monk le sam may not be that impressive is because you couldn't go there and create your own chatbot based off of any base model you want. So essentially, and i've also personally a launch products and companies doing some of the summer stuff.

So maybe that's why I am less impressed. I mean, you know IT does take some, some time, but it's not like you. I guess what i'm saying is you don't have to know how any A I works.

It's still just plugged into the A P I of ChatGPT. So just because his cofounder has experiences building a chatbot like it's really not that not really not that crazy. It's just a plugged into a in the A P I.

But anyways, if you going to poll, which is run by core up, you can create your own chat about you, essentially just create um whatever prompt that you'd want. So for something like ask monk le Simon, say pretend you are. A tax account you have relevant tax experience in, you know the state of connecting ate or just all of amErica for federal taxes or whatever.

Help someone to learn about what their current income is and help them come up with new expenses and find new tax, uh, stuff, new tax information and boom of time. You probably have what that guide developed with, ask monk's sam. I don't know, maybe i'll get roasted for this guy went above and beyond an integrated bunch, crazy stuff.

The other thing that I assume me that they're coming out with this new version that's hopefully Better than ask myle sams A I chatbot is I assuming um that they're going to plugged in a bunch of like modern real world new tax code changes that have come out since H G P was stop being trained and that's not that crazy either because essentially what you can do is just plugged in giant like dataset or like p dfs or documents of information uh around different topic. So you could just go probably to different places on the areas website and look up different tax codes and changes I am on account. So I don't know where all that stuff is aggregated, but where was that aggregated? You go grab l and information and say a find me the latest of tax, a break that I could get based off of my situation and make sure to include.

And then you just plugged in all of that new relevant data for new tax breaks that have you know come out in last few years or whatever shot that's that's i'm assuming they are doing this whole thing. Um I mean, not to say it's not impressive and like impressive or not, this is incredibly useful and this is the way forward for all taxes. So I absolutely hate doing taxes by myself.

IT is a pain to take a lot of time um a lot of stuff. It's tRicky to automate. So yeah, I kind of make sense.

It's interesting um a lot of people have had a lot of discussions, especially with like turbo tacks into IT, who's done a lot of a lobbying to the government to keep uh some things kind of complicated, allegedly. Um and so some people have floated like just completely eliminating the irs and instead putting taxes exclusively on product sales taxes. I think that was A G O P recommendation that came down the pipe a little bit earlier this year. I think it's probably a bit of you know extreme view in a sense that IT probably wouldn't actually ever pass.

Um and I think one of the big criticisms of this concept that people have is sure you could put a sales tax on everything, but like let's say, you put sales exes on all you know yachts, then of billionaire can be like, well, i'll just go buy my yacht from china or germany or somewhere other than amErica and amErica just wouldn't collect uh you know anything on that if there's an extra thirty percent sales tax on all super yutz people by the other places. That being said, and I guess I counter argument I recently was thinking of is the fact that yes, things like super yachts or maybe private jets that might be the case, but things like property obviously are never gone to move and that's one of the biggest you know expenses people ever have. Um and in addition, if you're gonna buy a car, whether you like, you could maybe go, but you say i'm going to buy my car direct from a factory in china, but you probably have to pay when I got imported and the grocery is you're not going to go buy them anywhere else.

Honestly, a majority of everything you'd ever buy is going to be purchased in the country um or when is important, you probably have to pay that tax. So i'm not a tax uh expert but I personally, just for a simplicity sake, I do see the appeal of that of a program or proposal like that. And i'm sure there's a lot more new ones.

A lot more goes into IT. And some people think i'm you know crazy. But from the leman's perspective, that is not you know not an expert on anything political or accounting wise that from layman's perspective, that seems like IT would be a lot simpler.

So for all you lawyers out there that might be listening to this or uh accountants, um I would love to hear your europe ion on this um maybe we can throw that into our facebook group. Link in the description what your opinion is and what you're thinking on this. But in any case, back to a use tax and what's going on there.

Amuse taxes. Publicly announced partners include built rewards, which is essentially a reward program that allows people to earn points when their pain, rent and investment, which facilitates pooling of capital among homebuyers and primarily a Younger ones. And um they also help people on their platform to sort out the tax implications of a potential home purchase, right? So it's kind of interesting there.

There seems like they are partners with people in helping them for a variety of different areas that probably not directly taking on turbo tax quite yet for like an entire overall tax thing that there you know tax in their tax form you might be filing um and they say that they have lower the barrier to building tax analysis um in and they've kind of built that into nestful services. And it's going be pretty interesting because a lot of more conventional approaches probably would have required nestful to spend more time in money without really achieving the same level of accuracy or speed. Um and so you know I think this is kind of cool when you think of all would like exciting and fun areas of ai um that are out there.

It's kind of cool to see something like this that is a real business case. Um so you know the tax code is one of more obviously boring and mundane things for many. And so this is probably an area that is gonna a lot of adoption, whether it's this company or another one. I'm using these ChatGPT like models to take in your situation and help you find the best tax breaks, especially new and relevant ones. I think this is going to be really powerful and a very interesting area to watch moving forward.