Answered on camera by Dan Milikow, CEO of iShoot.direct · 1:25 · transcript and sources below
Everyone is asking AI first. One in five Americans planned to use AI on their own tax filings this year, and people are discovering CPAs on ChatGPT and hiring them on Google. Many accountants share stories like these — the client who arrived sure they had the answer, the client expecting an AI discount, the client with a very wrong idea from a chatbot.
| What CPAs are seeing | The story | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Clients who think they know everything | Tax firms in the US and Europe report clients arriving with AI-prepared returns, asking for a review rather than a return | [4] |
| A CNBC reporter ran their taxes through ChatGPT — doing what 1 in 5 taxpayers now do[3] — before having a CPA review the AI's work | [5] | |
| Bad tax advice from AI | A taxpayer asked ChatGPT to work SEP contributions and Roth eligibility, got three different numbers in three tries, and warned r/tax: use a qualified advisor. The CPAs in the thread weren't surprised | [6] |
| The CNBC reporter's ChatGPT answer was “possibly correct but incomplete” — CPA Miklos Ringbauer caught a W-2 check the AI had waved off and taxable events it never flagged | [5] | |
| Clients expecting AI discounts | KPMG pushed its own auditor, Grant Thornton UK, from $416K to $357K — a 14% cut — arguing AI savings belong to the client, for AI the auditor paid to build | [7] |
| Top US firms (KPMG, PwC, RSM) are redesigning pricing because AI compresses billable hours faster than hourly models can absorb | [8] | |
| 71% of clients now prefer fixed fees; a task that took five hours takes one, and most small firms haven't repriced | [9] |
Yes — business owners and CFOs now put specific, situational tax questions to AI before they ever call an accountant.
Imagine a CFO is weighing a remote hire in another state and wants to know the tax exposure before it's real. So before the hire happens, before anyone calls an accountant, they run it by AI: how do we handle payroll taxes for a remote part-time employee in Nevada? Look at that question. That's not a keyword search. It's specific, situational — half a sentence of context. And that's typical now. The search box used to find sources; now it finds answers.
AI recommends CPAs by citing the named CPA whose content answers the exact question asked.
AI works the problem — registration, withholding, whether one hire creates a filing obligation — and the answer points to a named CPA laying it out for one part-time hire in Nevada. The CFO wasn't shopping for an accountant. One showed up inside the answer anyway.
Yes — at least 1 in 5 Americans planned to use AI to help with their tax filings this year[3].
Let's face it, everyone is asking AI. 2.5 billion questions hit ChatGPT daily[1]. Health alone is 230 million questions a week on ChatGPT[2]. Here's a tough stat for CPAs: at least 1 in 5 Americans are planning to use AI in their tax filings this year[3]. Think about your own behavior. Have you asked AI any tough questions in the last couple of days? Maybe the last couple of hours? If you did, you might have noticed the experts cited in the answer. Maybe you even searched them up. It's a pattern so common it has a name: discover on ChatGPT, hire on Google. So when a citation names a CPA, the call happens before anyone even started looking for a referral.