Fintech ANNA Money’s AI powered tax bot, Tax Terrapin, has now hit the impressive milestone of answering 30,000 of the public’s most vexing tax questions. After all, who wants to navigate the HMRC website or be sat on hold for hours waiting to talk to an HMRC employee when you can get an instant answer from Terrapin - for free?

ANNA is a smart AI-powered business account that does your taxes. The team behind ANNA realised that its customers had lots of questions about their financial admin, so ANNA’s AI team set about feeding an LLM (Large Language Model) the expert knowledge it would need.

The result is Tax Terrapin, which has swallowed more than 100,000 official HMRC tax guides; it has a comprehensive understanding of UK tax issues, and has actually passed seven professional accountancy and tax exams.

What’s more, it’s free to use and instantly answers in a simple, jargon-free way with a link to the specific HMRC page that is relevant to the query.

In April 2024 and at the end of January this year - when self assessments are due  - Tax Terrapin saw a 130% surge in questions (37% up on Jan 2024)  and ANNA expects to see the same ahead of the end of the tax year on 5 April.

The 7 quirkiest queries:

• Can I claim driving lessons for a cleaner as an expense?
• How to do Sex?
• Can I expense my take-away coffees if I am self-employed?
• How many Diet Cokes can an accountant drink per day?
• If I sell a cow, do I need to charge VAT?
• Is ice cream a variable supply in all circumstances?
• I own a Limited Company breeding horses. I need to invest in growing the horses for the first few years before they can be sold. Are the horses classified as assets on my accounts?

On a more serious note, most questions focus on these top 5 topics:

• Expenses and allowable Deductions
• VAT
• Limited Company Tax
• Self Assessment
• Tax rates, thresholds, and allowances

With the top 10 most common questions overall being:

1. What expenses can be included in a self-employed tax return?
2. Do I need to register Ltd or be a sole trader?
3. Do I need to register for VAT?
4. How much Corporation Tax will I pay?
5. Is dividend or salary better?
6. What expenses are allowable for self employment?
7. What’s the tax-free dividend amount this year?
8. What is the personal allowance for 2023/24?
9. Can the mortgage on a property be deducted as an expense for a limited company?
10. Is the use of a mobile phone by a director an allowable expense for Corporation Tax if the contract is in the company’s name but the director uses the phone mainly for private calls?