×

Systems, methods and articles for determining tax recommendations

  • US 10,664,925 B2
  • Filed: 06/30/2015
  • Issued: 05/26/2020
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2015
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
Patent Images

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

  • a computerized tax return preparation software application comprising computer executable instructions stored in a memory of a computer and executed by a computer processor of the computer, storing, by a shared data store of the computerized tax return preparation application, taxpayer-specific tax data, the tax return preparation software application having a modular architecture comprising a tax calculation engine, a completeness model comprising at least one decision table, a tax logic agent, a recommendation engine, and a user interface controller including a user interface manager loosely coupled to the tax logic agent;

    the computerized tax return preparation application, by the tax calculation engine, reading the taxpayer-specific tax data from the shared data store and navigating a tax calculation graph using the taxpayer-specific tax data to determine a result, the tax calculation graph comprising a plurality of nodes including one or more of input nodes, functional nodes, and function nodes and a plurality of calculation paths,wherein each calculation path connects a plurality of nodes which are data dependent such that a node is connected to another node if the node depends on execution of the other node, andwherein each input node is populated with taxpayer-specific tax data, each function node defines a tax calculation utilizing the populated input nodes, and each functional node is a result of a calculation performed by an interconnected function node;

    the computerized tax return preparation system, by the tax logic agent, generating one or more non-binding suggestions for questions necessary to complete a tax return based on the completeness module and transmitting the one or more non-binding suggestions to the user interface controller;

    the computerized tax return preparation system, by the user interface manager of the user interface controller, determining whether to process each of the one or more non-binding suggestions received from the tax logic agent and, for the one or more non-binding suggestions that the user interface manager has determined to process, presenting one or more questions to the user on a display of the computer in a manner and at a time determined by the user interface manager;

    the computerized tax return preparation application, by the recommendation engine in communication with the tax calculation engine and the user interface controller, analyzing the tax calculation graph and determining variables which can affect the result for the user, analyzing the variables to determine one or more controllable variables which are variables that the user of the computerized tax return preparation application can control through a computer generated user interface,wherein determining the user controllable variables is based at least in part on using a controllability model relating each of the variables to levels of user controllability, analyzing an effect on the results, and determining one or more recommendations for the user;

    receiving, by the user interface controller, the one or more recommendations;

    generating, by the user interface controller, a user interface comprising the one or more recommendations; and

    presenting to the user, by the user interface controller through a display of the computer, the user interface comprising the one or more recommendations.

View all claims
  • 1 Assignment
Timeline View
Assignment View
    ×
    ×