About & FAQ

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Disclaimer

TaxGPT generates answers based on public information from the Canada Revenue Agency website. It uses the ChatGPT’s AI model to return information about Canada’s tax system, and is intended for a beginner audience. The intent is to provide a friendly and approachable way to start learning about taxes, not to solve for complex scenarios.

TaxGPT is not a tax calculator or a professional tax advisor: it can’t accurately calculate taxes owed for specific income amounts and it can’t reliably make specific recommendations for your scenario.

Avoid questions that:

• Include personal information (eg, your name or contact information)
• Ask for calculations about specific income amounts
• Describe complex tax scenarios (eg, questions related to business income)

The more complex your question is, the less likely the response will be useful.

Ultimately, you are using TaxGPT at your own risk.

Questions and responses are logged to improve the service, but they are anonymous and cannot be tied back to you in any way. Submissions that include personal data will be deleted.

About

TaxGPT is an AI tax chatbot who helps Canadians answer general questions about taxes. TaxGPT is under active development, so the design or behaviour may change between releases.

TaxGPT is built and maintained by Paul Craig, who is reachable on Twitter or over email, or in-person at the magnificent National Arts Center in Ottawa.

TaxGPT is not sponsored by any company, it’s a 100% free service.

TaxGPT is also not a Government of Canada service. You can chat with Charlie the Chatbot on the Canada Revenue Agency’s website (bottom right) — apparently, he answered over a million questions last year.

You can also call the CRA until 11 pm on weekdays, or until 8 pm on Saturdays.

TaxGPT is not affiliated with taxgpt.com, which targets an American audience.

The Canadian maple leaf mascot is Tyler Benning’s.

Contact

If you spot an error, want to make a suggestion, or just want to give me a virtual high-five, please reach out to me at “paul [a] pcraig [dot] ca”.

If you have a suggestion for an area of taxes that is not covered by TaxGPT, I can take a look and potentially include it in the knowledge base.

I am kind of a one-person team over here, so there are likely some rough edges.

FAQ

How does TaxGPT work?

Here’s how TaxGPT works:

• You ask a question
• TaxGPT searches for relevant information in its knowledge base
• TaxGPT reads that information and uses it to return an answer
• TaxGPT also returns links to the CRA pages it thinks are most relevant

This method of answering (called Retrieval Augmented Generation (“RAG”)) feeds up-to-date info to the AI reasoning system in order to minimize the risk of providing inaccurate information. However, if you ask a question that TaxGPT doesn’t know about, it may still improvise an answer.

This is why it is important to always check the returned sources to corroborate answers returned.

Is TaxGPT a Government of Canada service?

Nope. If it was a government service, it would have a Canadian flag at the top of the page.

You can visit the Canada Revenue Agency’s website for comprehensive information on personal tax filing.

Is TaxGPT a scam?

Nope, not a scam. If TaxGPT was a scam, it would ask you for personal/financial details, like your home address or banking information.

On the other hand, if this was a scam, it would definitely claim not to be a scam.

(Not a scam though, to be clear.)

Can I file taxes through TaxGPT?

No.

You can browse the Canada Revenue Agency’s list of approved NETFILE software for official tax filing applications — there are both free and paid options.

I personally recommend Wealthsimple Tax.

What happens to my data?

Questions and responses are logged and spot checked to improve the service. However, no personal information is collected, which means submitted questions and responses can’t be used to identify you in any way.

I analyze the results to see how TaxGPT is performing and make regular improvements.

Are you making money from this?

No, this is not a sponsored product: TaxGPT is a completely free service.

I am actually losing tons of money — someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this.

Why did you build this then?

In 2019, a Canadian government team looked into the barriers preventing Canadians from filing for themselves and published their findings online. The major conclusion was that many Canadians lack confidence in their ability to file a return without making a mistake.

Government of Canada research has identified a “lack of confidence” as a major reason that Canadians don’t file on their own. Marketing campaigns and ‘dark design’ patterns often intentionally reinforce the mistaken notion that tax filing is best left to professionals. We don’t need ‘voting professionals’ to fill out ballots for us during elections; similarly, most Canadians are capable of filing their own returns with the right tool and some encouragement.

Doing taxes should be simple and straightforward, so TaxGPT tries to make it easier to learn about taxes.

Is TaxGPT a dangerous experiment? What about the risk of wrong answers?

Many people are intimidated by tax filing and feel like they have to be an expert or pay an expert to engage with the subject of taxes.

TaxGPT provides a simple user experience for people learning about taxes, in a way that is friendly and encouraging rather than being overly technical or undermining confidence. It is intended to be a helpful introduction to tax information. As mentioned in the disclaimer above, it is not good at understanding specific complex scenarios, and it is not a tax calculator (if you need one, try a 2023 Canada Income Tax Calculator).

TaxGPT has its limitations, but it’s better than avoiding the subject entirely, and there’s no perverse incentive here. It’s something you can use from your home, you can use for free, and it doesn’t try to profit from anyone’s confusion.

In the end, TaxGPT gives recommendations on how to file your taxes for free, and it can answer general questions about tax filing in Canada, but it doesn’t assist you in completing your return or file your taxes for you. TaxGPT is a way to get started learning about taxes in Canada.

“There’s a problem with TaxGPT”

Great, that’s just the feedback I am looking for. Please reach out and I will do my best to address it.

Just note that TaxGPT is targeting an entry-level audience. It doesn’t try to cover every possibility — I want to simplify things for the huge number of people that are likely paying someone else to EFILE for them every year.