Patent ID: 9117247
Filing Date: 2015-08-25
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method for preparing a portion of an electronic tax return using a symbolic representation of tax data and a tax return preparation application executing on a mobile communication device, the method comprising: a computing apparatus of the mobile communication device receiving an image of a two-dimensional machine readable representation of tax data for inclusion in the electronic tax return being prepared using the tax return preparation application and that is to be filed with a tax authority, the two-dimensional machine readable representation being encoded according to a pre-determined segmentation; the computing apparatus parsing the image into segments based at least in part upon the pre-determined segmentation of the two-dimensional machine readable representation; the computing apparatus decoding respective segments of the two-dimensional machine readable representation based at least in part upon the pre-determined segmentation to determine respective tax data, wherein decoding does not involve optical character recognition; the computing apparatus mapping respective segments to respective fields of the electronic tax return to be populated with respective determined tax data; before the electronic tax return is filed with the tax authority, the tax return preparation application, executing on the mobile communication device, preparing at least a portion of the electronic tax return by populating respective fields of the electronic tax return with respective determined tax data; and electronically transmitting a completed electronic tax return that was completed utilizing the tax return preparation application from the mobile communication device to a computer of the tax authority through a network to electronically file the completed electronic tax return with the tax authority.