[frereubu]

That made me laugh, thanks.

I remember talking to my accountant in the UK a long time ago when I was newly self-employed, asking if I could pass something off as a business expense that was sort-of-related, but I knew probably not really OK. Her reply has stuck with me ever since: "HMRC [the UK equivalent of the IRS] are interested in matters of fact, not interpretation."

[jimnotgym]

As an accountant at a large Corp, I can tell you that there are cases daily where two senior accountants argue over how to interpret accounting and tax rules, and often each agrees that the others interpretation is valid. I regularly see rulings from area specialists, and have to challenge them, only to be told, 'well in that case, you would be right'

I sometimes ask an AI to comment, and usually their answer is couched is ifs and maybes, just like the humans.

I often consult with auditors who tell me x is wrong, and they go away agreeing that y and z would be valid too, and x is also fine. There are often second order effects that need to be thought through.

Good luck AI

[ofjcihen]

This is the problem with the majority of AI push coming from devs. They look at something as complex as accounting and only think in terms of what they see on the surface and then say “oh that looks easy enough, there couldn’t possibly be more under the hood”.

[frereubu]

Yeah, my query was an open-and-shut case, I know there are grey areas too. The Arctic Systems case in the UK was an interesting one for IT contractors.