SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR TAX DATA CAPTURE AND USE

• US 20160155202A1
• Filed: 02/08/2016
• Published: 06/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Inventors: Huang, Nankun, Eftekhari, Amir, Howe, Carol A., Tifford, Alan B., Ludwig, Jeffrey P.
• Granted Patent: US 9,639,900 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/123 Tax preparation or submission
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/412 Layout analysis of documents structured with printed lines or input boxes, e.g. business forms or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text

Abstract

A computer-implemented method of acquiring tax data for use in tax preparation application includes acquiring an image of at least one document containing tax data therein with an imaging device. A computer extracts one or more features from the acquired image of the at least one document and compares the extracted one or more features to a database containing a plurality of different tax forms. The database may include a textual database and/or geometric database. The computer identifies a tax form corresponding to the at least one document from the plurality of different tax forms based at least in part on a confidence level associated with the comparison of the extracted one or more features to the database. At least a portion of the tax data from the acquired image is transferred into corresponding fields of the tax preparation application.

Claims

1-25. -25. (canceled)

26. A computer-implemented method for preparing at least a portion of an electronic tax return with a computerized tax preparation application, the computer-implemented method comprising:

a computing device receiving an image of one or more documents containing tax data therein with an imaging device;

the computing device extracting a plurality of features from the image of the one or more documents, wherein optical character recognition is performed on at least one of the features to output text;

the computing device comparing the extracted one or more features and output text to a graphical database and a textual database, respectively, containing a plurality of different tax forms;

the computing device identifying a tax form corresponding to the one or more documents from the plurality of different tax forms based on a comparison of the extracted one or more features and the output text to the graphical database and the textual database, respectively; and

the computing device transferring at least a portion of the tax data determined from the respective image into corresponding fields of the computerized tax preparation application to automatically prepare at least a portion of the electronic tax return.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the extracted one or more features comprise at least one of a title, a separator, a whitespace, a paragraph, an image and associated location information of an extracted feature.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the comparison of the extracted one or more features to the graphical database generates a confidence level associated with a particular tax form of the plurality of different tax forms.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the comparison of the output text to the textual database generates a confidence level associated with a particular tax form of the plurality of different tax forms.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein if the graphical database and the textual database identify different tax forms, the tax form having the highest confidence value is selected.

31. The method of claim 29, wherein if the graphical database and the textual database identify different tax forms, an arbiter identifies the tax form to be selected based on a pre-trained set of documents.

32. The method of claim 26, wherein the computing device identifies a tax form corresponding to the one or more documents from the plurality of different tax forms based at least in part on a dataset of previously imaged documents.

33. The method of claim 26, wherein the imaging device comprises one of a mobile phone or tablet.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the computing device is contained in the mobile phone or tablet.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein the computing device is remotely located with respect to the mobile phone or tablet and the image of the at least one document containing tax data is transferred to the computing device over a network.

36. A computer-implemented method for preparing at least a portion of an electronic tax return, the computer-implemented method comprising:

a computing device receiving an image of at least one document containing tax data therein with an imaging device;

the computing device dividing the image the into different regions, wherein each region contains image data relevant to a specific tax form;

extracting one or more features from one of the regions of the image based at least in part upon analysis of pixels of the region;

the computing device comparing the extracted one or more features to a database containing a plurality of different tax forms;

the computing device identifying a tax form corresponding to the region from the plurality of different tax forms based at least in part on a confidence level associated with the comparison of the extracted one or more features to the database; and

the computing device automatically transferring respective tax data determined from the image region into respective fields of the electronic tax return to automatically prepare at least a portion of the electronic tax return.

37. The method of claim 36, further comprising:

The computing device extracting one or more features from one of the remaining regions of the image based at least in part upon analysis of pixels of the remaining regions, the computing device comparing the extracted one or more features to a database containing a plurality of different tax forms;

the computing device identifying a tax form corresponding to the remaining regions from the plurality of different tax forms based at least in part on a confidence level associated with the comparison of the extracted one or more features to the database; and

the computing device automatically transferring respective tax data determined from the image into respective fields of the electronic tax return to automatically prepare at least a portion of the electronic tax return.

38. The method of claim 36, wherein the extracted one or more features comprise at least one of a title, a separator, a whitespace, a paragraph, an image and associated location information of an extracted feature.

39. The method of claim 36, wherein the database comprises a graphical database.

40. The method of claim 36, wherein the database comprises a textual database.

41. The method of claim 36, wherein the imaging device comprises one of a mobile phone or tablet.

42. The method of claim 41, wherein the computing device is contained in the mobile phone or tablet.

43. A system for automatically preparing at least a portion of an electronic tax return, the system comprising:

a computing device configured to receive an image of one or more documents containing tax data therein, the computing device being configured to extract a plurality of features from the image of the one or more documents, wherein optical character recognition is performed on at least one of the features to output text;

a graphical database containing a plurality of different tax forms, wherein the computing device compares the extracted features to contents of the graphical database and outputs a first confidence level for one or more of the different tax forms;

a textual database containing a plurality of different tax forms, wherein the computing device compares the output text to contents of the textual database and outputs a second confidence level for one or more of the different tax forms;

an arbiter executed by the computing device for resolving conflicts between the first confidence level and the second confidence level, wherein the computing device identifies a tax form corresponding to the one or more documents based on the first and second confidence levels, and

wherein the computing device is further configured to populate at least one field of an interview screen generated by a computerized tax preparation application with at least a portion of the tax data determined from the received image of the one or more documents to automatically prepare at least a portion of the electronic tax return.

44. The system of claim 43, wherein the computing device further comprises an imaging device for imaging the one or more documents.

45. The system of claim 43, wherein the computerized tax preparation application is located on a mobile communications device.