Internal Revenue Service: artificial intelligence will never be used for tax assessments

The message is clear and forcefully reiterated after the internal guidelines issued immediately in the wake of the AI act. Never artificial intelligence to make assessments. But the new technology can be used to accompany the actions of the men and women of the IRS for other purposes, such as speeding up refunds, which in the meantime have already been reduced from 75 to 68 days and could fall even further (the Dfp sets the bar at 67 days for 2027). Then there is the precompiled tax return, which has only just been launched but which in the first three days of (only) consultation has totalled 1.6 million accesses - with Lombardy and then Latium, Piedmont and Veneto at the top - and 80% (thus an increase on last year's 60%) chose the simplified mode. These are some of the passages from the statements made by the director of the Revenue Vincenzo Carbone interviewed during the online forum organised by the Ansa agency.

Carbone was quick to point out the concept: 'The Agency will never issue an assessment notice drawn up by artificial intelligence, this must never, ever happen. And if someone should be responsible for such an action, they will be held accountable. The human role is central: 'There will always be an official who, with his or her professional expertise, will evaluate the data we obtain with the use of artificial intelligence.

But this is not a closure to the new technology: 'In reimbursement, artificial intelligence helps us, because it allows us to analyse different data in a very fast time and to reduce the time needed for disbursement. AI serves to improve the quality of our work, but it should not be the end result'.

And urged on the possibility of arriving at a reduction in assessment deadlines, Carbone emphasised that this is a direction that has already been taken, for example for those who are transparent and loyal to the tax authorities, as in the case of access to cooperative compliance or for those who have a high score on their tax scorecards: 'The path has already been set in motion and the reduction will certainly be achieved, because I believe it is a matter of legal civilisation. We cannot think that after five years we arrive and go and ask for data, information or feedback from a taxpayer who has perhaps also changed his business over time'.

On the topic of certainty and trust, Carbone returned several times. And it is a concept at the heart of his goal: 'The future challenge is to reduce litigation. Going to litigation with the taxpayer is a defeat. We have the data, we can talk beforehand, we can ask the taxpayer for the necessary information to make his position better represented. Going to litigation is a defeat. It means that we were not good".