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Methods systems and articles of manufacture for handling non-standard screen changes in preparing an electronic tax return

  • US 10,540,725 B1
  • Filed: 08/18/2014
  • Issued: 01/21/2020
  • Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2014
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A computer-implemented method for preparing an electronic tax return, the method comprising:

  • a tax return preparation system comprising a computing device having a processor, a display, a memory, an input device and a tax return preparation software application executing a tax logic agent, a calculation engine, and a user interface manager on the processor, the tax return preparation software application comprising a shared data store in the memory and containing a schema representative of fields required to complete the tax return and a completeness graph data structure configured with tax questions and logic for determining missing tax data required to complete the tax return, the calculation engine performing one or more tax calculations based on a tax calculation graph data structure using tax data read from the shared data store and updating the shared data store based on the tax calculations, the tax logic agent being configured to read data from the shared data store, evaluate missing tax data by traversing the completeness graph data structure, determine one or more suggested tax questions for obtaining the missing tax data, and output one or more non-binding suggestions of the one or more suggested tax questions to the user interface manager;

    the user interface manager receiving the one or more non-binding suggestions and determining a first normal progression of question screens;

    the user interface manager outputting to the display a user interface presentation comprising a first question screen of the first normal progression of question screens, the first question screen including a request for a first tax data;

    the user interface manager receiving a first tax data value from the input device;

    after inputting the first tax data value, the user interface manager receives from the input device a navigation command to navigate to a different question screen that is not the next question screen after the first question screen in the first normal progression;

    in response to the navigation command, the user interface manager outputting to the display the different question screen;

    the user interface manager handling the input first tax data value based on a setting selected from a plurality of different settings for the first tax data, the user interface manager being configured to;

         1) store the first tax data value in the data store and output to the display a request to confirm that the first tax data value is correct prior to using the first tax data value in preparing the tax return when the setting is a first setting;

         2) not use the first tax data value in preparing the tax return and output to the display a request to input the first tax data again when the setting is a second setting; and

         3) use the first tax data value in preparing the tax return without outputting a request to confirm the correctness of the first tax data value when the setting is a third setting, andthe user interface manager invoking different user interface presentations based on a type of the display used by the computing device.

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