Tax Interview Engine with Third-Party Data Integration

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Solution Overview

Problem

Traditional tax interviews often lead to errors or omissions, especially for new taxpayers or those experiencing life events, as they require manual entry of demographic and financial information, which can result in incorrectly prepared tax returns.

Innovation Solution

An advanced tax interview system that integrates with third-party data sources to automatically determine and pre-populate relevant tax information, reducing user input and error by retrieving profiles from sources like social media, credit reports, and public records to confirm and correct tax data.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If manual entry of demographic and financial information is used in traditional tax interviews, then users can provide accurate information, but the process is time-consuming and prone to errors or omissions

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccuracy of tax informationVSAvoidtime required for tax interview

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by automatically retrieving demographic and financial information from third-party data sources (IRS, SSA, state agencies) before the tax interview begins. This pre-population of data eliminates the need for manual entry during the interview, reducing time consumption while maintaining accuracy through automated data retrieval from authoritative sources.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Loss of information

If manual entry of tax information is required, then complete information can be collected, but new taxpayers or those with life events are prone to errors or omissions

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecompleteness of tax dataVSAvoidaccuracy of tax data

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements feedback mechanisms by comparing automatically retrieved information with expected tax data requirements, identifying discrepancies or missing information. The system then prompts users to review and correct any identified issues, ensuring both completeness and accuracy of tax data while reducing manual entry errors.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

3Ease of operation

If third-party data sources are integrated to auto-populate tax interview responses, then user effort is minimized and errors are reduced, but system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveuser effort in tax interviewVSAvoidsystem integration complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system employs an intermediary layer that manages communications between the tax interview platform and multiple third-party data sources. This intermediary handles data retrieval, validation, and integration complexities internally, presenting a simplified interface to users while managing the backend complexity of coordinating with IRS, SSA, and state agency databases.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS11176619B1Tax interview with third-party data source integration

Publication Date: 2021.11.16 HRB INNOVATIONS

AI summary

A method, system, and computer program for presenting a tax interview in preparation for preparing a tax return and, more particularly, to an advanced tax interview engine that integrates with third-party data sources including social networking sites, professional networking sites, credit reports, data aggregators, and other sources so as to minimize the burden on a user. One or more profiles for the taxpayer are retrieved from their respective third-party data sources so as to pre-populate responses to the tax interview, present additional portions of the tax interview, or determine discrepancies with user-entered information.