How We Use AI at Whitt Accounting & Advisory

Trey Whitt

Oct 27

4 min read

Artificial intelligence has become an everyday tool in accounting and tax offices, ours included. Used well, it helps us work faster, catch more errors, and spend more of our time on the advice you hire us for.

We want you to know exactly how we use it, what it does and does not do, and how we protect your information along the way. This post covers where AI fits in our work, why federal tax law asks us to get your permission first, and the safeguards we put in place.

Where AI helps in an accounting and tax office

AI is best at reading, sorting, summarizing, and drafting. Those tasks take up a large share of a tax season. With your consent, here is where it shows up in our work:

Organizing your documents. AI helps us sort, organize, and summarize your tax documents and financial records, such as W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, and brokerage statements, after identifying information has been removed. A person checks the results before they are used on your return.
Tax research. AI-enabled research platforms, such as Blue J, help us research tax questions that apply to your situation and find the relevant Code sections, regulations, rulings, and cases faster. We then read the primary sources ourselves before relying on them.
Return review. AI can compare this year's return to last year's, spot errors, omissions, missing forms, or odd swings, and draft a review checklist. It is a second set of eyes, not a replacement for our review.
Tax planning and strategy. AI helps us project your tax liability, plan the timing and amount of tax payments, and model scenarios, such as entity choice or retirement contributions, to identify legal ways to reduce your taxes.

What AI does not do

AI does not prepare, sign, or file your return, and it does not make professional judgments for us. AI tools can be confidently wrong, so we treat every output as a draft.

A member of our team reviews any AI-assisted work, checks it against your documents and the law, and takes responsibility for the final product. The professional standards that apply to our work, including IRS Circular 230 and the AICPA's standards, apply whether or not AI was involved.

Section 7216 and why we ask for your consent

Internal Revenue Code Section 7216 makes it a crime for a tax return preparer to knowingly or recklessly disclose or use a client's tax return information without permission, except as the law allows. A companion provision, Section 6713, imposes civil penalties. The Treasury regulations under Section 7216 and IRS Revenue Procedure 2013-14 spell out what a valid client consent must say.

"Tax return information" is broad. It covers nearly anything you give us in connection with a return, including your name, address, income figures, and supporting documents.

The regulations were written before today's AI tools existed. In June 2026, the IRS issued introductory guidelines on responsible AI use in tax practice (Issue Number 2026-19). That guidance reminds practitioners that the penalties under Sections 7216 and 6713 apply, warns against uploading sensitive data to unsecured sites, calls for secure, enterprise-approved tools, and encourages practitioners to tell clients how they use AI. It does not say exactly when client consent is required. Some practitioners view these tools like other tax software, which can be used without separate consent. Many others believe that sending client information to an outside AI platform is a disclosure that calls for written consent, especially when it is used for planning, strategy, or research rather than strictly to prepare the return.

We have chosen the more protective approach. We ask for your written consent before we use your information with these tools, on two separate forms:

Consent to Use. This form lets our firm use your tax return information for the services described above.
Consent to Disclose. This form lets us share that information with the providers of the AI software we use: OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Blue J, Adobe, and Microsoft. If we add a provider, we will ask for your consent again before sharing your information with it.

Federal rules require these consents to be separate documents, which is why you received two forms in your TaxDome portal. Because these tools are run by outside companies, we need both consents to use them with your information. That gives you a clear say in how your information is handled.

How we protect your information

Consent is only part of the picture. These are the safeguards we apply whenever AI is involved:

No training on your data. We use business-grade AI accounts whose terms do not allow the provider to use our inputs or outputs to train its AI models. We do not use free consumer versions for client work.
Masking personal information. Before we upload anything, we remove or mask personally identifiable information (PII), including your name, Social Security and taxpayer identification numbers, dates of birth, street addresses, and bank and account numbers. The AI sees only the numbers and facts needed for the task, not who you are.
Least data necessary. We share only the information a task needs, not your whole file.
Access controls. Our AI accounts are limited to authorized staff and protected by strong passwords and multi-factor authentication.
Written security plan. These practices are part of our Written Information Security Plan, which federal law (the FTC Safeguards Rule) requires of tax preparers. The plan follows IRS Publication 4557, Safeguarding Taxpayer Data.
Human review. Every AI-assisted result is reviewed by our team before it is used.

It's your choice

Signing the consents is voluntary. It is not a condition of working with Whitt Accounting & Advisory. If you decline, we will still prepare your return and serve you fully. We will simply handle your work without the AI tools covered by the consents. If you sign only one of the two forms, we will not use these tools with your information.

If you sign, your consent remains valid until you revoke it. If you would prefer a shorter period, let us know through your TaxDome client portal before you sign. You can revoke your consent at any time by sending us a written message through your TaxDome client portal. If you file a joint return, we ask that both spouses sign.

We believe AI makes us better at what we do. We also believe your information is yours. If you have questions about how we use these tools, please reach out. We're glad to walk you through it.