SA tax lawyer’s AI warning ahead of bumper demand for accountants
One of the state’s leading tax law experts dubbed ‘the Taxinator’ is telling business owners to avoid shonky advice from generative AI sites as he warns of massive demand over extensive federal budget changes.
Cartland Law founder Adrian Cartland is warning South Australian business owners to be wary of AI-generated tax advice as demand ramps up for accounting services following the federal government’s changes to tax law.
The lawyer, who has been practising law for two decades and has been principal of his own firm for 11 years, said accounting firms would be flooded with inquiries as the federal government new budget tax law changes affect “every single business owner”.
“What this [federal ]budget changes – assuming that it’s passed – requires a restructure of every single business in Australia,” said Cartland, who calls himself the ‘Taxinator’ over his impressions of Terminator movie action man Arnold Sschwarzenegger.
“Every single business owner needs to go to their accountant and tax advisor and work out how they are going to change their structure.”
This will mean a rush on already-stretched tax advisors, Cartland said, and might drive business owners and advisors to generative AI platforms for advice.
“This is a once-in-a-generation boom of work for tax advisors,” Cartland said.
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“They’re going to be stretched, so the only way to survive the next 12 months is by using AI.”
He likened using OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT program to driving a car, saying that you need someone to teach you how to drive a car.
“People don’t know how to use AI,” he said.
“The rule is that you can use AI to do something that you could do ordinarily, given time, but faster.”
The changes opened up an opportunity for Cartland to spruik an AI platform developed in Perth that uses Cartland’s tax law expertise that he says could grease the wheels for accountants.
Called SavvyWise, the platform draws on authoritative sources including legislation, tax rulings and exclusive expert commentary written by Cartland to help accountants with tax research.
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Currently, the platform has 2000 users from 150 accounting firms and is valued at approximately $27.5 million.
Cartland had previously been a developer of AI-based legal technology, but said he no longer sold products anymore to focus on his specialist tax law firm.
“It means I can consult to tech companies because I have a skill set – I’ve been doing this for a dozen years – I’m a dual expert in law and AI,” Cartland said.
He said his advice was an important part of SavvyWise because it differentiated it from any other legal search product.
“I said, what this needs is unique content,” said Cartland, who claims he read the Master Tax Guide for fun while on university holidays.
“I have a special skill set in tax law and have the largest tax team in the state. I’ve been working on this for a long time.”
SavvyWise co-founder Drew Pflaum has commissioned Cartland to write the equivalent of 25 to 30 books on tax law over the next year to power the legal tech offering.
He said his content augments the basic information embedded into SavvyWise – tax rulings, legislation, case law.
“You need someone to use their expertise and go, ‘these are the things you should be looking at’.
“The generation part is one piece of it, but a well-functioning search engine is something else. That’s the piece that SavvyWise does well.”
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