A software company saves $100,000 using an AI-automated R&D tax credit claim. Twelve months later, the IRS hands them a $175,000 bill they legally cannot escape. The math isn't a glitch — it's a feature of how the federal tax code was engineered to punish exactly this kind of mistake. What most founders believe about AI efficiency is the wrong mental model entirely. The companies surviving high-stakes IRS scrutiny in 2025 aren't the ones with the fastest automation — they're the ones who deliberately slowed their AI down. The stakes aren't theoretical. A single rejected R&D claim triggers a cascade of compounding penalties, multi-year audit expansions, and defense fees that make the original credit look trivial. If you're using AI in your financial compliance stack right now, the liability waterfall may already be building. — Why did a U.S. Tax C ...