Inspiration
A few days before starting this project, I watched my mother try to manage our family's tax obligations in Indonesia.
Even though many tax processes are now available online, the experience was still far from simple.
New regulations and requirements meant that she needed to understand which additional tax categories applied to our business, what information was required, how to prepare it, and how to complete the process correctly.
The information was available, but understanding what the government was actually asking her to do was difficult.
I also saw myself in this problem.
As a young person who will eventually enter the workforce, I am still unsure about many basic tax-related questions. When should I start paying taxes? What do I need to do when I get my first job? How do I register for an NPWP, Indonesia's taxpayer identification number?
This made me realize that the problem is not simply that tax information is unavailable. The problem is knowing which information actually applies to you.
That is what inspired Pajaku.
What it does
Pajaku is an AI-powered personal tax navigator designed to help people understand how their life situations connect with the tax system.
Instead of expecting users to understand an entire tax system, Pajaku starts by understanding the user.
The goal is to answer a simpler and more personal question:
What actually applies to me?
How we built it
Pajaku combines structured user information, relevant tax information, and AI.
The system is designed around three core layers:
User Profile
Information about the user's employment, income sources, and relevant life situations.Tax Intelligence
Structured rules and authoritative information used to identify potentially relevant tax information.AI Layer
AI helps understand natural language, interpret life events, and explain complex information in a way that is relevant to the user.
Challenges we ran into
One of our biggest challenges was that tax information is highly contextual.
A rule that matters to one person may be completely irrelevant to another. We needed to design a system that helps users identify which information may actually matter to their situation.
Another challenge was balancing AI and accuracy.
For a topic such as taxes, we did not want to rely entirely on an AI model to determine information. We designed Pajaku so that structured information and reliable sources guide the system, while AI focuses on understanding context and explaining information.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud that we turned a personal experience into a product designed around a real problem.
Instead of building another generic chatbot that answers tax questions, we focused on creating a system that starts with the user's life situation.
Most importantly, Pajaku is built around a simple idea:
People should not have to understand the entire tax system before they can understand what applies to them.
What we learned
One of our biggest lessons was that AI alone is not automatically the solution.
People do not necessarily need more tax information. They need help understanding which information is relevant to their own situation.
We also learned that context is essential. The same information can be useful for one person and irrelevant to another.
What's next for Pajaku
In the future, we want Pajaku to understand more life situations, including:
- Starting a business
- Receiving investment income
- Managing multiple income sources
- Navigating international income
We also envision Pajaku monitoring regulatory changes and identifying when those changes may affect specific users.
Pajaku does not aim to make users become tax experts.
We want to help people understand the part of the tax system that matters to them.
Built With
- css
- fastapi
- git
- github
- html
- javascript
- postgresql
- python
- react
- render
- rest-api
- supabase
- tailwindcss
- typescript
- vite
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.