IOTA Webinar on “Generative AI for Tax Purposes”
A record number of participants joined IOTA’s a highly informative webinar on “Generative AI for Tax Purposes” on September 11, 2024. Over 290 tax officials registered for the event and we were pleased to have two speakers present in the IOTA studio: Dr Gábor Magyar from Hungary and Dr Angelis Alexopoulos from Greece, while Dr Ishan Costello from the United Kingdom joined the Webinar online.
Generative AI gives the ability to synthetically generate data in forms such as text, images and tabular data. Tax administrations have begun to test Generative AI to better understand and support individual taxpayers through a more personalised service – enabling taxpayers to file accurate tax returns and reducing compliance burdens, while others are looking to use in areas such as risk assessment. This Webinar aimed to expand the knowledge of participants in relation to the use of AI tools and synthetic data in the activities of tax administrations. Participants also looked at the methodologies employed, and the use of external experts, and considered the challenges related to the generation of synthetic data for tax purposes.
The Webinar featured prominent speakers from the IOTA membership who shared their experiences with researching and implementing Generative AI models in specific areas of tax administration operations. They discussed the benefits and drawbacks of using data produced by Generative AI. The following subjects were covered:
- Hungary: “AI Methods in the service of Tax Administration” presented by Dr Gábor Magyar, National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary;
- Greece: “Deep Generative Models for Fraud Detection” presented by Dr Angelis Alexopoulos, Assistant Professor Athens University of Economics and Business and Data Science Consultant to the Greek Tax Administration;
- United Kingdom: “Responsible Innovation in Generative AI: A New Approach to Ethical and Responsible Development” presented by Dr Ishan Costello, HMRC, UK (joined online)
The Webinar was very practical and was delivered through a combination of presentations, poll questions, and Q&A. The level of interest was clear from the range of questions posed to the presenters and it was clear that this developing area of Generative AI, along with other forms of AI, has huge potential combined with a range of risks and issues that need considerations in order to achieve a structured and trusted approach to its use by Tax Administrations.
All the webinar materials and presentations are now available on the event's webpage while the event recording will be provided soon. This digital event was facilitated by IOTA International Taxation Expert Jonathan Heath with support from his colleague Alexandros Roukalis. It was broadcast live from the IOTA Studio in Budapest, Hungary.
