If you’re working through a tricky tax treatment, typically you’ll start by mulling it over in your own mind. Then, maybe, refer to resource manuals or a quick Google search. Stepping it up, you may turn to tools like ChatGPT or Claude. Within those large language models (LLMs), if you’re tech savvy, you could have patched together a specific, AI-powered tax resource to help you.

Today, we have a new category of AI-powered tools in the accounting world, where LLMs meet tax law. Specialised LLM tools can dive deep into notoriously dense tax law and draft plain English translations of the law, helping accountants navigate tax complexity with speed. The models are trained on general legal and tax frameworks, including legislation, rulings, case law and guidance materials such as the Master Tax Guide.

The tools don’t replace tax advice, but they do help with the research and drafting responses. Of course, the draft output needs a human to verify the sources and technical accuracy.

I pay for ChatGPT and Claude. Why should I pay for a specialised AI tax-research tool?

Yes, existing LLMs are pretty good. However, currently LLMs are US-heavy and are unlikely to be consistently accessing recent changes. In contrast, specialised tax-research tools are constantly trained in jurisdiction-specific rulings, legislative amendments and case law updates.

The responses will cite actual source material (legislation, rulings, determinations) that can be verified. Also, LLMs can become an echo chamber, learning off you, while some of these new tax-research tools have guardrails in place not to learn from you.

At the Accounting and Business Expo in March 2026, I was astonished by the number of AI tax-research tools exhibiting. In researching this article, I have come across the following solutions:

1. CassandraResearch
2. CCH iKnowConnect
3. Elfworks
4. Empathetic AI
5. Law Cyborg, now known as Nylon
6. Practice Genius
7. Praxio AI
8. SavvyWise
9. Tax Guru AI

CCH iKnowConnect and Nylon have Australian and New Zealand offerings. The others are primarily Australian at the moment.

So, how have these AI tax-research tools been developed?

It’s useful to understand how these tools have evolved, the assumptions built into them and where they will fit into your existing workflow.

• Some have been purpose-built from the ground up to understand tax concepts, regulations and workflows. They focus on research and advice. Examples: Elfworks, Praxio AI and Tax Guru AI.
• Some are existing legal databases, with an AI capability layered across them. Examples: CCH iKnowConnect (Wolters Kluwer) and Nylon.
• Some are an AI copilot or assistant functionality, built specifically for Australian tax work. Examples: Empathetic AI and SavvyWise.

This insight leaves you with the question: do you want to pay for a content library, a research workflow, or a general assistant?

What are some practical uses?

Beyond the most obvious use case for these AI-powered tax tools of searching, summarising and drafting unbiased interpretation of tax legislation, there are other ways they can stretch your subscription dollar further:

• Useful for a second opinion or as a sounding board, especially for accountants working in small practices who don’t have people to bounce ideas off
• Provide a starting point to research unfamiliar issues or obscure information
• Create tax-centric content for client communication, blogs, newsletters and more
• Development of internal process notes
• Development of checklists. For example, use them to update your FBT questionnaires. Assess what changes are needed to ensure the form is technically correct
• Create assessments for potential employees
• Training in tax topics. Notably, Elfworks offers CPD-verifiable, hyper-personalised, structured learning
• Supporting strategic tax advisory work.

Limitations, risks and accuracy

There are a few things to be careful about when using AI-powered tax-research tools. They may hallucinate, that is, they are confidently wrong.

The responses need to be relevant to the specific geographical region being queried.

Tax legislation is a moving target and current relevant information needs to be surfaced, so as not to confuse you with outdated rulings.

And, it’s important to remember they are a tool. Don’t become over-reliant on them. You have a professional responsibility to assess the reasonableness of the response: is it what you expected? If not, dig a little deeper to verify the sources map to the work you are researching. Remember, the tools are a research assistant, not a decision maker.

Ten questions to ask when evaluating AI tax research tools

1. What jurisdiction do the models cover and are they trained on legislation, rulings, case law and guidance materials such as the Master Tax Guide?
2. Do they de-prioritise private rulings?
3. What is the pricing model? Monthly? Locked-in annual subscription?
4. How often is the research database updated?
5. How is answer quality monitored?
6. Is your information used to train the model?
7. Is there an audit trail or a query history?
8. How responsive is the product roadmap to user feedback?
9. Are you able to share research with the team?
10. How long does it take to respond?

I’m not convinced that AI-powered tax research tools have a long shelf life

Currently, general LLMs don’t have the latest Australian and New Zealand tax updates, and they can struggle to deep-dive into rulings. Until that gap narrows, if you’re spending time on tax research these tools are definitely worth their monthly subscription fee. Some users have remarked to me that these tools are saving them three-to-five hours a week in tax research, which is transformational.

If you’re currently using a solution with an inbuilt tax-research tool, initially test that out to see if it meets your needs. However, most of the available AI solutions are standalone and tech-stack agnostic, so they can be trialled and adopted into your workflow swiftly, with minimal disruption. I’d look at ones that offer a monthly subscription, rather than an annual commitment.

Librarians don't hallucinate

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