Taxman or lady?

Things have gone way too far when my readers are getting antsy because I dared call the taxman a man. Heaven help me! Surely the taxman is a metaphorical being who’s completely sexless (oops, I mean genderless). And that in itself is a deeply unpleasant mental image. A much nicer image is some clever invoicing I received from a terrific kiwi company. Their emails have the cutest heading saying ‘Need something for the taxman?’ which links you directly to a perfectly compliant tax invoice. Absolutely brilliant. Chefs kiss to their innovative approach.

But even the sloppiest of kisses won’t get you far with todays ultra modern gender neutral pronoun-less tax person. Why? Because the taxman is largely just piles of brain-frazzling legislation, which once upon a time was memorised and policed by overworked stressed out caffeine fueled humans. Not anymore. Instead the hard yards are done by hyper vigilant artificial intelligence. Algorithms are now scanning tax returns, tracking digital assets, and flagging suspicious tax deductions in micro seconds. These bots have friends all over the world allowing them to chat casually about your overseas transactions, foreign investments, currency trading and cryptocurrencies, all without the need for a grueling international plane trip to sort though dusty foreign archives.

Unlike the tax investigators of old, tech works 24/7 using advanced analytics to sniff out undeclared transactions, trace your digital footprint and cross-reference your lifestyle against your reported income. Keep that in mind next time you’re debating whether to claim a rescue iguana as an official "guard animal" for your home office. Historically your terrifying reptile deduction might just have slipped through unnoticed, but it’s more likely to be flagged as suspicious with the rise of Discriminant Function Systems (DIF). These impressive systems can also learn your spending habits so don’t be surprised if you receive a chilling IRD letter next time you try claiming $2,000 of drying cleaning bills, when your entire wardrobe consists of only tees and sweatpants.

The other decidedly unhuman movement is the use of chatbots for handling routine tax questions. I don’t know about you but I find asking a bot for tax advice is like asking a toaster to bake a cake. It can do it, but you probably shouldn't rely solely on the AI-generated advice. In the States, the IRS’s own Taxpayer Advocate (whether that be a he, she or they) is warning taxpayers not to trust anything their own tax bot spits out. So if you’re relying on tax-bots and the IRD takes legal action against you, here’s hoping your security-guard iguana also identifies as a dam good tax lawyer.