What should never be automated at the IRS? Danny Werfel's answer is immediate: "I'm sorry, Watson, you're not getting the chair." He wants AI-powered auditors: smarter, faster, moving through cases quicker. What he doesn't want is AI making the call. "It should be an IRS employee that is making the final decisions on audit selection, on the assessment of what the balance due is, the audit outcomes." Augmentation, not replacement, even at the highest-stakes point in the system. Full episode with Danny Werfel, the 50th Commissioner of the IRS, in comments.

AI risk in tax isn't only about the tools firms deploy. It's also about who gets exploited when they don't understand the tools already out there. Danny Werfel: "There's more AI scams out there that are defrauding your clients, defrauding your taxpayers." Taxation, he argues, is different from most domains "a legal requirement... a civic duty... a patriotic duty" and one already vulnerable to non-compliance, intentional and not. AI can accelerate that. His ask to the profession: put on the community hat, not just the one-company hat, and help taxpayers understand the risk before they're the ones exposed to it. Full episode in comments.

"We can't just walk out of the room and say, 'You got this, Watson. You're all set.'" Danny Werfel's warning to firms and tax authorities: don't let efficiency gains push the human out of the decision chair. He's already seeing the pattern play out. Firms implement an agent on top of tax prep, it saves preparers four hours a day - and leadership either cuts headcount or just piles more compliance work onto the people who are left. Either way, oversight erodes. The efficiency is real. The mistake is treating it as a reason to remove the human, rather than a reason to reinvest in judgment. Full episode with Danny Werfel in comments.

AI in tax is moving fast, and the risks are moving just as fast. @DannyWerfel, the 50th Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, joins @KaceeJ to discuss what responsible AI adoption should look like across the tax profession. The conversation examines: “Extraordinary productivity gains shouldn’t automatically mean removing people from the process.” “Accuracy isn’t enough. AI systems must also be auditable, transparent, and governed.” “If AI performs the work traditionally given to junior professionals, how will the next generation develop the judgment required to supervise it?” The goal isn’t to slow AI adoption. It’s to make sure the profession understands what it is deploying, and who remains accountable when something goes wrong. AI should sit beside the tax professional, not take their chair. A conversation every accountant and tax professional should hear. Link in the comments.

"It's not just about what a job pays. It's about the value you create for society." Barry Melancon spent 30 years leading the AICPA, and this idea shaped his view of the accounting profession. He explains why being a CPA is about far more than technical expertise. Watch the full conversation.

Can you trust what AI creates? Barry Melancon explains why assurance plays a critical role in helping businesses trust AI-generated information and the systems behind it. He also shares how AI will reshape the way audits are performed. Hear his full perspective.

AI can generate answers. Trust takes longer to earn. Barry Melancon explains why building trust around AI will be one of the accounting profession's biggest responsibilities. Listen to the full discussion.

Leadership looks different from the inside. After leading the AICPA for three decades, Barry Melancon shares how his role at Baker Tilly International gave him a firsthand look at the execution and prioritization challenges firms face every day. Watch the full episode now.

External forces will continue to push accounting firms to move faster. Chair of Baker Tilly International and former CEO of the AICPA, Barry Melancon joins Kacee Johnson to discuss how AI is reshaping accounting's century-old pyramid model, making trust and assurance a growth area even as the profession's biggest challenge becomes compressing "6 years of business acumen into 2 years" for new talent. New episode of the AI Native Accounting Podcast is live.