Systems methods and articles of manufacture for assessing trustworthiness of electronic tax return data

• US 9,990,678 B1
• Filed: 03/31/2015
• Issued: 06/05/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Inventors: Cabrera, Luis F., Wang, Gang, McCluskey, Kevin M., Laaser, William T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Liu, I Jung
• Application Number:
  US14/675,166
• Time in Patent Office: 1,162 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/123 Tax preparation or submission

Abstract

Computer-implemented methods, systems and articles of manufacture for assessing trustworthiness of electronic tax return data. Systems may include modular components including a confidence module that determines at least one attribute of a source of the electronic tax return data, determines a confidence score for the electronic tax return data based at least in part upon at least one source attribute, compares the confidence score and pre-determined criteria, and generates an output indicating whether the confidence score for the electronic tax return data satisfies the pre-determined criteria. When the confidence score does not satisfy the pre-determined criteria, the user can be presented with an alert or message. Confidence scores can be generated and may also be displayed for specific electronic tax return data or fields, a tax form or worksheet, an interview screen, a tax topic, or the tax return as a whole, e.g., for purposes of determining audit risk.

Claims

1. A distributed computing system, comprising:

a first computer comprising a user interface controller;

a second computer in communication with the first computer through at least one network and comprising a tax logic agent; and

a third computer in communication through respective networks with respective first and second computers and comprising a data store in communication with the user interface controller and the tax logic agent;

the user interface controller, being configured or programmed to write electronic tax return data to the data store;

the tax logic agent, being configured or programmed to

read runtime electronic tax return data from shared data store, and

provide a non-binding suggestion to the user interface controller regarding what to present to a user based at least in part upon the runtime electronic tax return data; and

the user interface controller configured or programmed to

determine at least one attribute of a source of the electronic tax return data,

determine a confidence score for the electronic tax return data based at least in part upon at least one source attribute,

compare the confidence score and pre-determined criteria,

generate an output indicating whether the confidence score for the electronic tax return data satisfies the pre-determined criteria,

associate a tag with electronic tax return data that is a subject of the output,

generate an alert involving the electronic tax return data in response to the confidence score failing to satisfy the predetermined criteria and

present the alert to the user through a display of a computing device utilized by the user and

write the electronic tax return data and the tag to the data store so that the tag is associated with the electronic tax return data in the data store.

2. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the tax logic agent comprising or being configured or programmed to generate a non-binding suggestion based at least in part upon the output indicating whether the confidence score for the electronic tax return data satisfies the pre-determined criteria, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to alert the user based at least in part upon the non-binding suggestion.

3. The distributed computing system of claim 2, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to determine the at least one source attribute before the non-binding suggestion is generated.

4. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the user interface controller comprising or being configured or programmed to generate the alert independently of a non-binding suggestion generated by the tax logic agent.

5. The distributed computing system of claim 4, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to determine the at least one source attribute before the electronic tax return data is written to the data store.

6. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the tag indicating whether an associated confidence score satisfied the pre-determined score criteria.

7. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the tag indicating whether electronic tax return data associated with a confidence score that failed to satisfy the pre-determined criteria has been presented to the user.

8. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the tag indicating whether the electronic tax return data associated with the confidence score that failed to satisfy the pre-determined criteria has been confirmed or corrected by the user.

9. The distributed computing system of claim 8, the tag indicating that the user confirmed or corrected electronic tax return data associated with a confidence score that failed to satisfy the pre-determined criteria takes precedence over the output generated by the user interface controller such that no additional alert is generated for that confidence score.

10. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the tag indicating the source attribute.

11. The distributed computing system of claim 1, further comprising a calculation engine configured or programmed to read electronic tax return data from the data store, determine the tag associated with the electronic tax return data, execute a calculation involving the electronic tax return data, determine a calculation result, and write the calculation result to the shared data store together with the associated tag such that the electronic tax return data and the calculation result include the same tag.

12. The distributed computing system of claim 11, wherein the at least one tag indicates that the confidence score for the electronic transaction data did not satisfy the pre-determined criteria, the tax calculation engine being configured to transmit a request to at least one of the tax logic agent and the user interface controller regarding user confirmation or correction of the tagged electronic transaction data before the calculation involving the tagged electronic tax return data is executed.

13. The distributed computing system of claim 11, the tax logic agent being configured or programmed to read runtime data comprising the calculation result and the associated tag from the data store and generate a non-binding suggestion involving the calculation result, the non-binding suggestion identifying or comprising the tag, and provide the non-binding suggestion to the user interface controller.

14. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to determine multiple attributes of the source, wherein electronic tax return data in the data store includes or is associated with respective tags for respective source attributes.

15. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein electronic tax return data in the data store includes or is associated with:

a first tag indicating the source attribute; and

a second tag indicating the confidence score for the electronic tax return data or whether the confidence score satisfied the pre-determined criteria.

16. The distributed computing system of claim 15, wherein electronic tax return data in the data store includes or is associated with a third tag indicating whether the user has confirmed or corrected the electronic tax return data that was a subject of the confidence score that failed to satisfy the pre-determined criteria.

17. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the source attribute comprising source identification data, the confidence score for the electronic tax return data being based at least in part upon the source identification data.

18. The distributed computing system of claim 17, the source identification data comprising at least one of a source name and source location data.

19. The distributed computing system of claim 17, the user interface controller being further configured to categorize the source, the attribute comprising a type or category of the source.

20. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the source attribute comprising a format or protocol of electronic data received from the source, the confidence score being for the electronic tax return data based at least in part upon the format or protocol.

21. The distributed computing system of claim 20, the format or protocol comprising at least one of:

an Open Financial Exchange (OFS) data format;

a .tax format; and

a .pdf format.

22. The distributed computing system of claim 20, the format or protocol comprising a format of data generated by an optical character recognition process.

23. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the attribute comprising a score generated by a recognition process, wherein an output generated by the recognition process includes electronic tax data received by the user interface controller, the confidence score for the electronic tax return data being based at least in part upon the recognition process score.

24. The distributed computing system of claim 23, the recognition process comprising optical character recognition (OCR) process, wherein an output generated by the OCR process includes an OCR score, the confidence score being based at least in part upon the OCR score.

25. The distributed computing system of claim 23, the recognition process comprising a speech recognition process, wherein an output generated by the speech recognition process includes a speech recognition score, the confidence score being based at least in part upon the speech recognition score.

26. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the source attribute comprising a communication method utilized to provide the electronic transaction data to the user interface controller, the confidence score for the electronic tax return data being based at least in part upon the communication method.

27. The distributed computing system of claim 26, the communication method comprising electronic transfer of the electronic tax return data from a file locally stored on the user'"'"'s computer.

28. The distributed computing system of claim 26, the communication method comprising electronic transfer of the electronic tax return data from a source computer through a network.

29. The distributed computing system of claim 26, the communication method comprising manual entry of data by the user via an interview screen presented by the user interface controller.

30. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to determine at least two attributes of the source of the electronic tax return data, determine a confidence score for the electronic transaction data based at least in part upon the at least two source attributes, perform a comparison of the confidence score for the electronic tax return data and pre-determined criteria, and when the confidence score for the electronic tax return data does not satisfy the pre-determined criteria, generate an output processed by the user interface controller being configured or programmed to process the output to present a screen comprising an alert concerning the electronic tax return data associated with the confidence score for the electronic tax return data that did not satisfy the pre-determined criteria.

31. The distributed computing system of claim 30, the user interface controller being configured to determine the confidence score for the electronic tax return data based at least in part upon a weighting function.

32. The distributed computing system of claim 31, the weighting function inputs comprising at least two source attributes selected from the group consisting of:

identification data of the source of the electronic tax return data;

a format or protocol of the electronic tax return data;

an output generated by the recognition process utilized to determine the electronic tax data; and

a communication method utilized to provide the electronic transaction data to the user interface controller.

33. The distributed computing system of claim 31, the weighting function inputs comprising:

identification data of the source of the electronic tax return data; and

a format or protocol of the electronic tax return data.

34. The distributed computing system of claim 31, the weighting function inputs comprising:

an output or score generated by the recognition process utilized to determine the electronic tax data; and

communication method utilized to provide the electronic transaction data to the user interface controller.

35. The distributed computing system of claim 31, the weighting function inputs comprising:

identification data of the source of the electronic tax return data; and

a communication method utilized to provide the electronic transaction data to the user interface controller.

36. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the user interface controller being further configured or programmed to determine a confidence score for at least a pre-determined section of the electronic tax return based at least in part upon respective confidence scores for respective electronic tax return data, perform a comparison of the confidence score for at least the pre-determined section of the electronic tax return and second pre-determined criteria, and when the confidence score for at least the pre-determined section of the electronic tax return does not satisfy the second pre-determined criteria, generate a second output processed by the user interface controller being configured or programmed to process the second output to present a second screen comprising a second alert concerning the pre-determined section of the electronic tax return associated with the confidence score for pre-determined section of the electronic tax return that did not satisfy the second pre-determined criteria.

37. The distributed computing system of claim 36, the pre-defined section of the electronic tax return comprising a tax form or worksheet, wherein a confidence score for the tax form or worksheet is based at least in part upon respective confidence scores of respective electronic tax return data in the tax form or worksheet.

38. The distributed computing system of claim 36, the pre-defined section of the electronic tax return comprising a tax topic, wherein a confidence score for the tax topic is based at least in part upon respective confidence scores of respective electronic tax return data of the tax topic.

39. The distributed computing system of claim 38, wherein electronic tax return data of the tax topic spans multiple interview screens generated by the user interface controller.

40. The distributed computing system of claim 38, wherein the electronic tax return data of the tax topic spans multiple tax forms or worksheets of the electronic tax return.

41. The distributed computing system of claim 36, the user interface controller being configured to determine a confidence score for the electronic tax return as a whole, wherein the confidence score for the electronic tax return is based at least in part upon respective confidence scores of respective tax forms or worksheets, wherein a confidence score of a tax form or worksheet is based at least in part upon respective confidence scores of respective electronic tax return data of the tax form or worksheet.

42. The distributed computing system of claim 41, the user interface controller being further configured or programmed to generate an output regarding an audit alert when the confidence score for the electronic tax return as a whole does not satisfy pre-determined criteria.

43. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to update a confidence score as electronic tax return data is received by the user interface controller or the user corrects or confirms the electronic tax return data that has been stored to the data store.

44. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to determine when to present a screen comprising the alert to the user.

45. The distributed computing system of claim 1, the user interface controller being configured or programmed to present a screen comprising the alert to the user in response to a determination that the confidence score for the electronic tax return data does not satisfy the pre-determined score criteria.