Patent Grant
11854092
The field of the invention relates to systems and methods for tax delinquency resolution and analysis, and more particularly to systems and methods for presenting to a user acceptable options for resolving delinquent tax debts to local, state and/or national tax authorities and providing the user with appropriate documentation to resolve his/her delinquency status based on a selected option.
Tax and accounting rules and regulations have become increasingly complex, causing many taxpayers to not report or under-report in their tax returns and consequently owe the government money that they must repay. The rules and regulations are equally, if not more, difficult when dealing with the complex repayment structures that are typical of tax agencies, e.g. the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax resolution repayment options. For example, a taxpayer repayment structure includes deductions for multiple expenses. However, the IRS's current tax rules and regulations do not provide a system, methodology or appropriate documentation to calculate and to set up a repayment structure based on a taxpayers current earnings and all their allowable expenses. The current systems for repayment calculations, available on the IRS website for example, are not structured for inputting any of the allowable expenses to compute repayment options. Instead, the IRS simply provides for a repayment plan of 72 months, i.e. the system simply takes what the taxpayer owes in delinquent taxes and divides it by 72 months to arrive at a repayment schedule. Other available systems are configured to only recognize certain taxpayer expenditures as actual expenses, while most taxpayer expenses are not accounted for. Because of the limitations of current systems, a taxpayer is not able to determine what is an acceptable repayment plan for their tax delinquency based on their actual disposable income.
In addition, based on the taxpayer's earnings, allowable expenses, disposable income and overall financial situation, there may be one or more alternately acceptable repayment plans or resolutions. However, current systems are not capable of presenting the taxpayer with all the alternatives, including a preferred resolution option, based upon what they can afford to pay each month to the tax agency, e.g. IRS. Because these alternatives are not presented to the taxpayer, it is possible that the taxpayer will forfeit potential repayment savings/advantages. Taxpayers may also have to hire tax professionals to analyze the alternatives for them at great expense and still not get the optimum advice. This is because allowable charts and information within the IRS systems are difficult to find and understand, and are not readily available or known to taxpayers. For example, currently there are about 144,000 data points within the IRS database that may affect computation of acceptable repayment schedule for a tax delinquency. Even some professional tax services personnel may not know all these data points and rules to adequately help and represent the taxpayers who require solutions acceptable to the IRS.
Accordingly, systems and methods for generating tax delinquency resolution and analysis that provides the taxpayer acceptable and optimum tax repayment solutions is desirable.
The invention relates to systems and methods for tax delinquency resolution and analysis. In one or more embodiments, the system takes a taxpayer's financial information, e.g. personal data, tax delinquency information, assets, and expenses, then using data obtained from a tax agency's website, computes and presents to a user a plurality of available and acceptable options for resolving delinquent taxes owed to tax agency and also providing the user with appropriate documentation to resolve his/her delinquency status based on a selected option. The selected option may be based on analysis by a trained deep learning algorithm using information available from the tax agency website, previously acceptable resolutions to the tax agency, or as identified by an expert.
In one or more embodiments, a software application may present the user with (a) a financial analysis chart generated based on a tax authority's published allowable expenses data, and the user's actual expense provided by the user; (b) a plurality of options for repayment based on the data used to generate the financial analysis chart, including the most optimal repayment option; (c) information regarding any programs of the tax authority related to the release of liens or levies.
In one or more embodiments, the system includes a tax delinquency resolution and analysis server system communicatively coupled through a network to one or more user devices to provide solutions to resolve tax delinquencies, and a user account database coupled to the tax delinquency resolution and analysis server system to store information including an account and at least one username for each of the plurality of users. The tax delinquency resolution and analysis system may be configured to ask the user a series of questions, calculate solutions, and provide solutions for display and printing. The tax delinquency resolution and analysis server system is configured to communicate with the tax agency's (e.g. Internal Revenue Service or other federal or state tax authority) computer systems to retrieve data points and/or current tax codes. The tax delinquency resolution and analysis system further comprises an inference engine to infer one or more information based on answers to one or more previous questions. One or more of the solutions provided by the tax delinquency resolution and analysis system should be acceptable to the tax agency, e.g. IRS. The tax delinquency resolution and analysis server system further provides instructions for negotiation with the tax agency.
The tax delinquency resolution and analysis system is a stand-alone application on a user device or the user device may act as a thin client to the analysis server system.
Other systems, methods, features and advantages of the invention will be or will become apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the invention, and be protected by the accompanying claims.
In order to better appreciate how the above-recited and other advantages and objects of the inventions are obtained, a more particular description of the embodiments briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof, which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the components in the figures are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention. Moreover, in the figures, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the different views. However, like parts do not always have like reference numerals. Moreover, all illustrations are intended to convey concepts, where relative sizes, shapes and other detailed attributes may be illustrated schematically rather than literally or precisely.
The present invention comprising systems and methods for tax compliance and delinquency resolution will now be described. In the following exemplary description numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding of embodiments of the invention. It will be apparent, however, to an artisan of ordinary skill that the present invention may be practiced without incorporating all aspects of the specific details described herein. Furthermore, although steps or processes are set forth in an exemplary order to provide an understanding of one or more systems and methods, the exemplary order is not meant to be limiting. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the steps or processes may be performed in a different order, and that one or more steps or processes may be performed simultaneously or in multiple process flows without departing from the spirit or the scope of the invention. In other instances, specific features, quantities, or measurements well known to those of ordinary skill in the art have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the invention. It should be noted that although examples of the invention are set forth herein, the claims, and the full scope of any equivalents, are what define the metes and bounds of the invention.
For a better understanding of the disclosed embodiment, its operating advantages, and the specified object attained by its uses, reference should be made to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which there are illustrated exemplary disclosed embodiments. The disclosed embodiments are not intended to be limited to the specific forms set forth herein. It is understood that various omissions and substitutions of equivalents are contemplated as circumstances may suggest or render expedient, but these are intended to cover the application or implementation.
The term “first”, “second” and the like, herein do not denote any order, quantity or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one element from another, and the terms “a” and “an” herein do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced item.
The term “data points” or “data point” are variables that may affect computation of acceptable repayment schedule for a tax delinquency.
The above described drawing figures illustrate the described system and method of use in at least one of its preferred, best mode embodiment, which is further defined in detail in the following description. Those having ordinary skill in the art may be able to make alterations and modifications to what is described herein without departing from its spirit and scope. While the described invention is susceptible of embodiment in many different forms, there is shown in the drawings and will herein be described in detail a preferred embodiment of the invention with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention and is not intended to limit the broad aspect of the invention to the embodiments illustrated. Therefore, it should be understood that what is illustrated is set forth only for the purposes of example and should not be taken as a limitation on the scope of the present apparatus and its method of use.
Referring to
The end-user or client device include, for example, mobile device 1200 (e.g., phone, tablet, etc.), desktop or laptop device 1300, other devices with computing capability and network interfaces, and so on. The users of client device 1200, 1300 include taxpayers, professional tax services personnel (or practitioners), government personnel, and so on. As such, the terms taxpayers, professional tax services personnel, practitioners, and government personnel may be used interchangeably to denote the person using the software and system of the invention.
The tax server system 1500 includes, for example, federal and state systems that provide tax data points, codes, rules, procedures, etc.; and systems from other tax related authorities, such as courts, and so on.
Referring to
Referring to
In an embodiment, during the installation of the application 1310 in the user device 1200, 1300, the installation program will ask the user, for example, through a step-by-step wizard, to specify a location to install the application 1310 onto the user device 1200, 1300. The user may also specify how to access the installed application 1310. For example, on Windows computers, the installation program will allow a shortcut to be installed in the Programs menu, on the “Start” bar and/or the desktop. A series of additional help documents will also be installed with the application 1310 automatically. Once the application 1310 is installed, it may connect to the analysis server system 1400, via network 1100, to check for any updates necessary to ensure that the application 1310 is compliant with all of the latest tax codes related to the specific tax issues that the application 1310 is designed to resolve. If no update is found, the application 1310 will present a main home screen. If an update is found, the application 1310 will show an alert dialog, for example, “Please Wait”, while it downloads the latest updates and saves the data to an embedded database within the application 1310 program. If the user device 1200, 1300 is not network-enabled, the application 1310 will update the software later when a network 1100 connection is established. When installed as a client application, the above updating step may not be needed.
The analysis server system 1400 is implemented using technology known in the art, such as built-in .NET/C# using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) for front end, and Compact SQL 4.0 for embedded database. The analysis server system 1400 may also be implemented as a cloud, cloud enterprise, client-server, software as a service (SaaS) architecture, and so on. The analysis server system 1400 may also display images, video or audio that will need external commercially available viewers such as Apple Computer's QuickTime media player, Microsoft's Windows media player, RealAudio's RealPlayer, and so on. Analysis server system 1400 web pages may be cached since much of the information does not change on a daily basis. This will aid greatly in scaling the analysis server system 1400 rapidly. The analysis server system 1400 may further be offered in different user versions, for example, individual taxpayer edition, independent contractor's edition, tax professional services edition (for accountants, attorneys, etc.), small business/employment tax edition, corporate edition for small to mid-size S-corporations, state editions, licensed edition (for the IRS, etc.), and so on. Those of skill in the art would appreciate that the analysis server system 1400 and the client device, e.g. 1200 or 1300, may be implemented in the same computer system.
Main memory 406 may provide a computer readable medium for accessing and executed stored data and applications. Display interface 408 may communicate with display unit 410 that may be utilized to display outputs to the user of the specially-programmed computer system. Display unit 410 may comprise one or more monitors that may visually depict aspects of the computer program to the user. Main memory 406 and display interface 408 may be coupled to communication infrastructure 402, which may serve as the interface point to secondary memory 412 and communication interface 424. Secondary memory 412 may provide additional memory resources beyond main memory 406, and may generally function as a storage location for computer programs to be executed by processor 407. Either fixed or removable computer-readable media may serve as secondary memory 412. Secondary memory 412 may comprise, for example, hard disk 414 and removable storage drive 416 that may have an associated removable storage unit 418. There may be multiple sources of secondary memory 412 and systems implementing the solutions described in this disclosure may be configured as needed to support the data storage requirements of the user and the methods described herein. Secondary memory 412 may also comprise interface 420 that serves as an interface point to additional storage such as removable storage unit 422. Numerous types of data storage devices may serve as repositories for data utilized by the specially programmed computer system. For example, magnetic, optical or magnetic-optical storage systems, or any other available mass storage technology that provides a repository for digital information may be used.
Communication interface 424 may be coupled to communication infrastructure 402 and may serve as a conduit for data destined for or received from communication path 426. A network interface card (NIC) is an example of the type of device that once coupled to communication infrastructure 402 may provide a mechanism for transporting data to communication path 426. Computer networks such Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Networks (WAN), Wireless networks, optical networks, distributed networks, the Internet or any combination thereof are some examples of the type of communication paths that may be utilized by the specially programmed computer system. Communication path 426 may comprise any type of telecommunication network or interconnection fabric that can transport data to and from communication interface 424.
To facilitate user interaction with the specially programmed computer system, one or more human interface devices (HID) 430 may be provided. Some examples of HIDs that enable users to input commands or data to the specially programmed computer may comprise a keyboard, mouse, touch screen devices, microphones or other audio interface devices, motion sensors or the like, as well as any other device able to accept any kind of human input and in turn communicate that input to processor 407 to trigger one or more responses from the specially programmed computer are within the scope of the system disclosed herein.
While
Generally, the system 1000 comprises a process 2000, as illustrated in
Referring to
The decision algorithm of the system 1000 determines the next questions to ask, i.e. UIs to display, based on the user's responses to one or more prior questions. The decision algorithm may be implemented as part of the inference engine 1425. For example, when the user inputs a zip code, the system 1000 infers the city, state, etc., information. The system 1000 uses that data (and other inputted/inferred data) to extract data from the IRS website related to IRS “deals” the user may qualify for, e.g., under $25,000 owed, and to determine what documents are needed and what to display to the user. The system 1000 also uses the user's data to extract information from the IRS website related to rates, e.g., a maximum allowable living expense for the zip code. This feature permits the system 1000 to require less input from a user and speeds up the process.
The application 1310 may use texts, images, video, etc., when gathering the taxpayer information and when providing help to explain tax issues. The application 1310 may also provide one or more links, for example, hyperlinks, that when invoked by a user, will launch an external help window that will provide additional tax help. The application 1310 stores user-entered information in the embedded database and/or the account database 1410. The user-entered information may be added, updated, or deleted as often as the user feels necessary.
Once the application 1310 has gathered all the necessary information related to the taxpayer's financial circumstances or data (i.e. blocks 2010 to 2050), the analysis server system 1400 interacts with the tax system 1500 to retrieve the necessary data points at Block 2060. Using the data points, other tax codes, and algorithms, the tax system 1000 calculates and identifies one or more optimized solutions it determines to resolve the user's tax problems at Block 2070. In an embodiment, the application 1310 requires the user to answer all relevant questions before one or more solutions will be calculated. The solutions also resolve outstanding tax compliance issues, for example, liens, levies, garnishments, and so on. The solutions may include (not shown), but not limited to, Guaranteed Installment Agreement, Streamlined Installment Agreement, Financially Verified Installment Agreement, Direct Debit Installment Agreement, Partial Payment Installment Agreement, etc.
In one or more embodiments, to achieve greater chance of acceptance of a proposed resolution by the tax agency, a Deep Learning algorithm may be trained with documents of previously accepted tax resolutions by the tax agency. For example, the system 1000 may collect and save all previous submissions to the tax agency, e.g. IRS, that were previously acceptable as resolutions to differing tax delinquencies as training documents. The data could be collected by requiring users of the invention to indicate which of their submissions was accepted, for example. In addition, training documents may also include webpages from the IRS website for all the available programs to the taxpayer.
Thus, all documents supportive of a tax delinquency resolution constitute a positive training set. The documents that are not supportive may also be useful, however, because they generally identify a classification of documents that are unrelated to positive tax resolution. Such documents constitute a negative set of training documents. Consequently, a binary set of training documents is available. With such documents, the Deep Learning algorithm(s) in the system may be trained to make a binary choice, namely to score the current generated solutions. The solutions with high scores according to the Deep Learning algorithm(s), which are related to the positive training set, may be output and displayed to the user.
One object of amassing a sufficient number (hundreds if not thousands) of training documents is to train a deep learning algorithm so that it functions well, thus considered “strong.” Consequently, category-specific training documents are passed to, and ingested by, one or more deep learning algorithms best suited to handle natural language processing (NLP). The algorithm more commonly used in the context of NLP and text analysis, is known to persons of skill in the art as a recurrent neural networks (RNN).
When a deep learning algorithm is trained to “understand” a particular type of tax delinquency case, it may be thought of as a “filter.” Typically, the system will consist of more than one filter. The system passes the proposed solutions data through each filter to identify the optimized tax solution, i.e. at Block 2070.
After performing all calculations, application 1310 presents the one or more solutions to the user (e.g.
The algorithms of the system 1000 include, but not limited to, algorithms to calculate the taxpayer's monthly income of the user, income tax, disposable income; to determine which forms the present to the taxpayer, and so on. These exemplary tax delinquency algorithms in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention are provided below.
The algorithm to calculate the monthly income:
The algorithm to calculate income tax:
public Decimal CalculateIncomeTax(TaxEntities.User user, decimal whichTax=0.00 m, TaxEntities.EmployerInfo wageInfo=null)
The algorithm to calculate disposable income:
public Decimal CalculateDisposableIncome( )
The algorithm to determine which forms to present to the taxpayer/user:
var disposable=new DisposableIncome( );
}
As illustrated in
Database Module: In one or more embodiments of the present invention, database 1410 comprises information, provided in one or more modules as described in more detail below, from the taxpayer and information which maybe manually or automatically generated based upon information from IRS's database/website. This database may also be updated when the tax agency, e.g. IRS, updates or changes the allowable expenses. For example, there are currently in excess of 144,000 data points on the IRS's website that affect tax delinquency and repayment calculations. These data points are more efficiently obtained by mining webpages on the IRS website. Similarly, data points for other tax agencies may be obtained by mining webpages on their respective websites.
The data points for allowable expenses include, but are not limited to, the following: food, household supplies, clothing and clothing services, personal care products and services, miscellaneous expenses, rent, electric, oil/gas, water/trash/telephone/cell/cable/internet, real estate taxes, insurance, maintenance and repairs, transportation costs (lease or loan payments, gas/insurance, licenses, parking/maintenance and public transportation), medical expenses based upon the number and age of the taxpayers, including their dependents, and so on. Each county has its own allowable expenses that are adjusted for the number of individuals living in the household. Thus, for example, a one-person's household expenses would be less than a family of four. The IRS, for example, has also allowed increases in transportation costs that are based on Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA). For example, there are currently about 23 such areas which include the following: National, Northeast, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Midwest, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, South Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Miami, Washington, D.C., West Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and so on. The database may also incorporate any special programs by the IRS with respect to installment agreements.
Personal Information Module: The data entry (see
Employment, Real Estate and Personal Assets Module. This Module may be described in terms of the following 5 sub-modules (see
Self-Employment Information Module (see
Expenses Module: In an embodiment, this is where the tax practitioner (or user) would input the actual expenses of the taxpayer (see
Resolution Information Module: In an embodiment, once all of the information has been inputted into the system, the system will categorize expenses in accordance with the tables and schedules set forth in IRS Forms 433F, 9565 or 9465FS and the tandem sheet (see
Forms to be Printed. In an embodiment, this module populates and prints (or otherwise presents to the user) selected schedules, forms, and other documentation for use by the user in negotiating resolution to his/her tax delinquency. The system determines the forms (i.e. the sections and lines) that will be selected and printed for the selected tax delinquency solution.
The invention has been described herein with reference to the IRS, but may be equally applicable to other state, local or federal tax agencies without departing from the scope of the invention.
In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments thereof and particularly with use of the IRS as a specific example. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention. For example, the reader is to understand that the specific ordering and combination of process actions described herein is merely illustrative, and the invention may appropriately be performed using different or additional process actions, or a different combination or ordering of process actions. For example, this invention is particularly suited for tax delinquency resolution and analysis; however, the invention can be used for any delinquency resolution and analysis in general. Additionally and obviously, features may be added or subtracted as desired. Accordingly, the invention is not to be restricted except in light of the attached claims and their equivalents.
The present application is a Continuation-In-Part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/044,835, filed Oct. 2, 2013, now abandoned, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/709,145 filed Oct. 2, 2012, specifications of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5822741 | Fischthal | Oct 1998 | A |
| 20100153138 | Evans | Jun 2010 | A1 |
| 20110066650 | Fuxman | Mar 2011 | A1 |
| 20120023006 | Roser | Jan 2012 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 14044835 | Oct 2013 | US |
| Child | 15594425 | US |
