AI is an incredible tool.
It can help clients learn, organize information, explore ideas, prepare questions, and better understand their tax situation.
We welcome that.
AI is becoming a bigger part of how people communicate and analyze information, and there is a lot of good that can come from it. It can help turn complicated information into something easier to understand and help clients come to their CPA with more thoughtful questions.
What can become challenging, however, is when AI takes a relatively simple question and turns it into a much larger project.
A single question can become a 15-part questionnaire, followed by several hypotheticals, additional research requests, and a detailed email asking the CPA to address every point.
Or a client may upload tax documents, filings, or other financial information into an AI tool and ask it to identify everything that might be important. The resulting list can then become a request for the CPA to review, analyze, and respond to each item.
At that point, what started as a helpful use of AI can quickly become a significant amount of professional work.
A friendly reminder
AI does not make the resulting work complimentary or automatically included in your existing engagement.
Correspondence, document exchange, document review, research, analysis, and detailed responses can all require significant professional time.
This can sometimes be overlooked because AI makes generating information feel almost effortless.
But while AI can produce a long list of questions in seconds, a CPA still needs to determine which questions actually matter, review the relevant facts and documents, verify the applicable tax rules, consider the client’s specific circumstances, and provide an accurate professional response.
That takes time.
And this form of scope creep does not need to be AI-generated to be billable.
Whether the questions come from ChatGPT, Claude, Google, a tax seminar, a conversation with a friend, or simply an enthusiastic client with a lot of great ideas, the time required to research, analyze, explain, and provide professional tax advice is still professional time.
Not every question requires a full analysis
One of the challenges with AI-generated information is that it can produce a very large number of potential issues.
Some may be relevant. Some may not apply. Some may require substantial research. And some may be based on assumptions that are not accurate.
Our job is not simply to respond to every AI-generated question.
Our job is to identify the matters that are actually relevant to your situation and address them appropriately.
That distinction is important.
We are happy to review and analyze relevant requests. We simply want to make sure the work is focused on the issues that matter most and that the time required to do that work is understood.
What about a “Not to Exceed” budget?
A not-to-exceed budget is not necessarily a guarantee that unlimited correspondence, document review, and additional tax analysis will fit within that amount.
If the scope of work expands significantly, the amount of professional time required can also increase.
This is particularly relevant when a large amount of AI-generated analysis is introduced into the engagement.
A 30-page AI-generated list may have taken only seconds to create, but reviewing those 30 pages, determining what is relevant, researching the issues, and responding appropriately can take considerably longer.
In those situations, we may need to discuss the additional work and potential fee impact before proceeding.
So, please use AI
Explore.
Learn.
Ask questions.
Use it to help you understand your tax situation and prepare for conversations with your CPA.
Just remember that AI is a tool for helping you think through issues, not a way to turn every possible tax question, document, and hypothetical into an unlimited professional services request.
We are happy to help.
We simply want to make sure we are focusing on the questions that matter most, providing accurate advice, and respecting the professional time required to do the work properly.
After all, AI may be able to generate 50 questions in a few seconds.
Your CPA still has to answer them.
