Understanding Your Tax Return with AI: How ChatGPT & Co. Help

Let's be honest: for most of us, the tax return is one of those things we happily put off. It sits there until the deadline is breathing down our neck. And that's rarely down to laziness. It's because we don't understand half of the terms, or can't tell whether they even apply to us. Work-related expenses, special expenses, extraordinary burdens: it sounds as if you need a degree just to grasp what is meant. So you put it off. Understandable.

This is exactly where artificial intelligence can do you a surprisingly big favour. Not by doing your tax return for you, but by explaining each of these clunky terms as often and as patiently as you like. In plain German, or a language of your choice. Without anyone making you feel you should have known this long ago. I have seen people around me truly understand, for the first time, what they may and must declare in their tax return, and that there was real money in it for them.

I'll show you how, calmly and step by step. If you have never used AI: perfect, this article is written for exactly you.

You need no software, no expensive device, and no prior knowledge. A normal browser or an app on your phone is entirely enough. The three best-known AIs you can use for free are ChatGPT, Google Gemini (the AI that is now built right into Google Search) and Claude. All three can do essentially the same thing, and at the start it really doesn't matter which one you pick. Just choose one.

Getting started is less spectacular than you might think: you open the site or download the app, sign up once for free with your email address, and then you have an empty input field in front of you, much like the message box in WhatsApp or the Google search bar. That's where you type your question. In full sentences, just as you would ask a person. And don't worry: you can't break anything. In the worst case you get an unhelpful answer. Then you simply ask differently.

Never opened an AI before? Our Basics section calmly explains what AI actually is and how to get started.

There is one thing you should know before you ask the AI questions about your taxes, and it is so important that I deliberately put it right at the start: AI can be wrong.It can state figures, allowances, or rules that are outdated or simply false, and it all sounds friendly, fluent, and utterly convincing. It doesn't lie to you maliciously; it just sometimes guesses wrong without noticing.

And because sensitive things quickly come into play with taxes, a word on data protection. The major AI providers are US companies, and your entries can end up on servers in the USA. So do not enter any real personal figures or data: no tax ID, no bank details, no real amounts, if you want to be on the safe side. A simple rule of thumb: treat the AI like a postcard, not a diary. Only write what a friendly, helpful stranger on the phone could also hear. To understand the terms, you don't need your real numbers anyway. General questions are plenty.

Now for the real benefit. And it's bigger than it looks at first glance. The best thing is to try the following directly yourself; you can simply copy the example questions.

It explains every technical term, as often as you like. This is the real win. Where a form or a guide just throws a word at you, you can keep pressing the AI until it truly clicks. Ask it, for example:

And if that's still too abstract, simply follow up:

The beauty of it: the AI never gets impatient. You can write “explain that even more simply” ten times over without anyone rolling their eyes.

It explains things in simple language, or in your language. You can ask it to explain everything in very simple words, for instance:

And if German isn't your native language, it helps you just as well in Turkish, Polish, Arabic, or any other language. Just add, for example, “explain that to me in Turkish”.

It helps you understand a form, even by photo. With most AIs you can now upload an image, for example of a section of a form where you get stuck, and ask:

But be careful, and this matters: use it to understand the form, not to have it tell you bindingly which number goes on which line. The AI can misread fields too. And here again the postcard rule applies: no real personal figures in the photo.

It tells you what to look out for. You can describe your rough situation and have it give you a list to research further. An example:

Or you ask specifically for examples:

That way, within a few minutes, you move from “I have no idea where to begin” to “now I know what to look up and what to ask”.

Year after year, many people file no tax return at all, simply because the effort and the impenetrability feel too great. Yet most employees get money back in the end, on average a four-figure amount. So it can genuinely pay off to work through it once.

And the biggest hurdle, understanding, is exactly what the AI takes off your shoulders. Once the terms are no longer a closed book, “I'll do it sometime” turns into “I'll do it tonight”.

Let's sum it up, because it's the heart of the matter: the AI takes you from not-understanding to understanding. It's your patient explainer, your reference that never gets annoyed. The binding step, though, what you actually enter, you take with a reliable source: the official guidance from the tax office, an income tax assistance association, or a tax advisor.

The AI may understand. You should decide, with a second opinion.

And who knows: perhaps the tax return is the very occasion where you notice for the first time that this whole AI thing isn't as complicated and lofty as it seems from the outside, but a tool that helps you very concretely in everyday life.

When you're done, feel free to look around further. In the Basics you start from zero, and with the 5 AI tricks for everyday life or the prompt templates for beginners you'll find more ways to use AI in your daily life.