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Government

US IRS To Re-Evaluate Modernization Investments In Light of AI Technology (msn.com) 33

The IRS is pausing its technology modernization efforts to reassess its strategy in light of AI advancements. Reuters reports: The agency will review a number of technology modernization initiatives that have been taken in recent years, including a new direct free filing system for tax returns that was launched last year under the Biden administration, the official told reporters. The official said the IRS did not have a specific number of staff cuts in mind as a result of the technology pause, but said there would be an opportunity to "realign the workforce to those new ways of doing business."

US IRS To Re-Evaluate Modernization Investments In Light of AI Technology

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  • by Daneurysm ( 732825 ) on Friday March 14, 2025 @07:49PM (#65234637)
    oh great, AI hallucinations in audit decisions... what could possibly go wrong here?
    • Making decisions based on probabilities is a strength of AI, that's what it does. Subjectivity is subjectivity, a "hallucination" is just a fancy name for a computer-generated guess, not really different from a human-generated guess.

      But this is not about AI audit decisions, it's about praising the dear leader while sending money to a particular group of AI "leaders".

    • I for one would only truly start panicking once they introduce Robo Debt Collectors...
      ...Fully Armed and Operational Robo Debt Collectors...(*)




      (*) as specified in the second amendment. Nothing to see here.
    • Not because of hallucinations, a human being would have to check everything because it would eventually go to a court, but because it could be used to rapidly find tax violations of the sort done by wealthy people and corporations and then quickly and effortlessly collect the taxes in a way that previously required huge amounts of labor.

      Right now the 1% get out of pain billions and billions in taxes just by having Congress under staff the IRS.

      As for you and me there are statutory requirements that a
      • >"Right now the 1% get out of [paying] billions and billions in taxes just by having Congress under staff the IRS. "

        Right, that 1% who pay almost half of all the income taxes collected and at the highest rates as well. And do so while also pulling in no government assistance. Way more than half of Americans pay no net taxes at all (they pay little and get lots of assistance).

        So yeah, keep piling on the misdirected hate. Are there policies that should be changed? Probably. But you have to be realisti

    • If anything, it might actually start increasing the enforcement on high income earners better than what's happening today.

      That is, unless they use Musk's AI. Then it will be tuned to put the hammer to the middle class and let high net worth individuals off scott free.

  • Translation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wonkavader ( 605434 ) on Friday March 14, 2025 @07:50PM (#65234639)

    Translation:

    The IRS is killing anything which will reduce the payout to the owners of H&R Block, Intuit, etc. The masses have money which can be fleeced, and rich people can harvest that. The IRS will instead pump money into AI, because that's a way that the current government can siphon US funds off to push to rich folks which own AI concerns, Musk notably, but others as well. AI has the great benefit of being trainable on simple tax returns, so we effectively audit all middle-class and lower folks, while complex tax returns remain so individual AI probably won't be able to make an impact on auditing those -- and this government will make sure it's never tried.

    • The rich already have the laws on their side. Nothing new under the sun.

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Correct, the AI investment will be directed to Musk.

      "AI has the great benefit of being trainable on simple tax returns, so we effectively audit all middle-class and lower folks,..."

      Training and inferencing are not the same.

      "...while complex tax returns remain so individual AI probably won't be able to make an impact on auditing those..."

      Nonsense. There would be plenty of data for training even more complex returns.

      "...this government will make sure it's never tried."

      Yes, of course that's true. But this is

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday March 14, 2025 @07:59PM (#65234655)

    Will this be like him saying we'll have full self-driving cars in ten years, eleven years ago [jalopnik.com]?

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      Elmo has been saying we'll have self-driving cars "next year" for the last decade. Why anyone still believes that nonsense is beyond me.

      • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday March 14, 2025 @10:27PM (#65234909) Journal

        Why anyone believes anything that ketamine junkie says is beyond me.

        Remember when we used to worry about drug abusers being put in positions of power and making critical decisions? Those were the days.

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Now we have convicted felons, rapists, junkies, etc. in positions of power for the "tough on crime" party, that has become nothing but an evil joke.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I have come to the realization that a) most people are fucking dumb and a year is already much larger than their mental capability can deal with and b) they do not know they are dumb and make important decisions (like who to vote for) with those pathetic mental capabilities.

        There really is no other explanation left at this time.

    • We do; they're called Waymo. [waymo.com] Have you heard of them?

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      This time there may be people with torches and pitchforks, because Elonia is essentially burning down the government. I guess he will flee to South Africa when enough people leave their coma and realize what is going on.

  • This is just what we all need.

    A hallucinating AI that thinks you have money consolidates your movement data and then aligns that with other people with money. It'll be worse than a jealous spouse.

    Seriously the old COBOL crap needed to die in the 90s.

  • by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Friday March 14, 2025 @10:12PM (#65234875)

    How about spreadsheets that mimic tax forms? Then at least the addition errors would go away.

    For bonus points a cell that wants the entry from line x of form 1245 could look in the current folder for f1245, import the value if it exists, and if not enter a zero.

    They make it a lot harder than it needs to be. Fortunately this year I only needed eight forms. Last year it was ten.

    • Re:Instead of AI (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday March 14, 2025 @10:31PM (#65234919) Journal

      The fact that the populace has to tell the government what they think they their balance is after filling out a series of ridiculously complex forms, and then the government gets to thumbs up / thumbs down to begin with is asinine when they already get duplicates of all the same paperwork and account balances.

      It's a ridiculous situation that should have been reformed decades ago, and exactly the opposite of what should happen. Why can't they send an account statement with a process for challenging what's on that statement if we disagree?

      • I couldn't agree more.

        I am amazed at how insane the Income Tax has become. It is a nightmare of complexity, ambiguity, loopholes, penalties, jargon, traps, and frustration. It takes hours to do something that should take a few minutes.

        And while on the topic, why is it that the only way I can fill out or submit a tax form is either on paper or through some THIRD PARTY? There is no excuse in 2025 that I can't log directly into an IRS-run website from any web browser, have it already filled in most of my in

        • "It is a nightmare of complexity, ambiguity, loopholes, penalties, jargon, traps, and frustration."

          Oh, you've met Form 2210 and Schedule AI. The joys of estimated taxes with a highly variable income stream.

          Then there is the ACA form. That one was a pail in the ass too.

        • They aren't scanned in, they're typed in. My last years paper taxes had transcribing errors. One number had some digits swapped and another number lost a repeated digit. A computer scan doesn't make errors like that, people do. I had to file an amended return to correct their errors and I still haven't heard back from that yet.

          The old saying still holds true, "we have the best government money can buy." Corporations still convincing Congress to act against the interests of the general public. That's e

  • AI breaks everything it touches. It is a shame executives in the government and private sector are so blown away by buzzwords. The word "cloud" is still wowing them like it was magic. Everything that is hosted in the cloud is slower and less reliable than when it was locally hosted by a wide margin. Once everything we search for at work is junked up with AI slop, all work will slow to a crawl, but executives who don't understand technology will blame the people. AI is just the latest boondoggle that billion

Of course you can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. After a while you'd run out of air to push against.

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