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AI tax prep chatbots are giving bad advice.

A review by The Washington Post finds that AI-powered chatbots from leading tax prep companies H&R Block and Intuit Turbo Tax gave either irrelevant or unhelpful tax filing advice.

Here’s one example: Where should your child file taxes if she goes to college out of state? When I asked, TurboTax’s “Intuit Assist” bot offered irrelevant advice about tax credits and extensions. H&R Block’s “AI Tax Assist” bot gave me the wrong impression she has to file in both places. (The correct answer: She only files in the other state if she has earned income there.)

Question after question, I got many of the same random, misleading or inaccurate AI answers. 

H&R Block announced AI Tax Assist in December, while Turbo Tax released a similar service in November. Both companies have said AI chatbots learned from the same datasets human experts use to answer tax questions, but their disclaimers mention that users should always double-check AI-provided advice.