Round 1 · results October 27, 2026
The AI Tax Exam
More and more people ask AI about their taxes. The answers are rarely checked in public. Five AI chatbots take the same 50 questions on the 2025 tax law changes. Licensed CPAs and EAs grade every answer without knowing which AI wrote it. Then everything goes public: every question, every answer, every grade, and the method.
Taking the exam
- ChatGPT
- Gemini
- Claude
- Grok
- Perplexity
Each one is asked through its free public version, with the date and model version written down. VALID is the referee in Round 1, not a contestant: it writes the test, runs it, and publishes it. VALID sits the exam itself in Round 2.
How it works
- 50 real questions. The new rules on tips, overtime, people 65 and older, car loan interest and state and local taxes, plus IRS letters, deadlines and extensions. Each question has its answer key written from the Internal Revenue Code and IRS publications.
- Same day, same words. Every AI gets the exact same question on the same day. Nothing is edited.
- Graded blind. Answers are shuffled and the AI names removed. Each licensed grader marks each answer correct, partly correct or wrong, and flags any answer that could cost someone money or trouble.
- Everything public. Every answer in full, every grade, how much the graders agreed, and the full method. Any AI company can respond, and its response is published next to its score.
Why VALID is doing this
- Tax is where a confident wrong answer is the most expensive. The 2025 law changed rules that AI models learned before the change.
- There is no public standard for what a correct tax answer is. This exam is one attempt at one, and the questions, answer key and grades are open for anyone to check.
- Graders are named only with their written permission. No grader is paid by any AI company.
Try it first: grade five verdicts
This is what grading feels like. Read each verdict and the lines it rests on, and mark it. Your marks stay in this browser and are never sent.
The real round is 20 answers like these, graded blind. If that felt easy, the exam needs you.
Licensed CPA, EA or tax attorney? Grade the exam
About two hours from home, due October 22. You are credited by name in the published results if you want to be.