# The Verification Tax
Source: https://humanspark.ai/frameworks/verification-tax/

*If checking the output takes as long as doing the task, the ROI is zero.*

**When to use:** When judging whether a task is worth automating at all.

Net Value = *Time Saved Drafting* − *Time Spent Verifying*

High-verification work - regulatory submissions, anything safety-critical - makes a poor first pilot. And the tax is not fixed: it falls as the user's fluency rises.

> **The slop trap:** Skip the check and the tax does not vanish - it moves to whoever gets the output next. Passing unverified work to a colleague is how AI slop is made.