Patent ID: 8544726

Claim:
A computing system implemented process for providing an automatic and integrated R&D tax credit program comprising: an accounting professional using the computing system implemented process for providing an automatic and integrated R&D tax credit program to provide one or more Research and Development (R&D) project/activity survey tools to one or more employees of a business that is a client business of the accounting professional; using one or more processors to automatically obtain employee R&D activity data from the one or more R&D project/activity survey tools, the employee R&D activity data indicating time the employees of the client business devoted to R&D activities; using one or more processors to automatically access a payroll system associated with the client business and automatically obtain employee payroll data for the employees of the client business; using one or more processors to automatically transform the employee R&D activity data and the employee payroll data into R&D cost data indicating a cost to the client business of employee time devoted to qualified R&D activity; using one or more processors to automatically obtain access to one or more data processing systems used for the business and automatically obtain R&D tax credit qualification data for the client business; using one or more processors to automatically transform the R&D cost data and at least part of the R&D tax credit qualification data for the client business into R&D tax credit data for the client business; using one or more processors to automatically transfer data representing the R&D tax credit data for the client business to one or more tax preparation systems used for the client business and automatically fill-in relevant data fields of one or more forms associated with the tax preparation system for the client business; and using one or more processors to automatically store at least part of the employee R&D activity data, the employee payroll data, the R&D cost data, the R&D tax credit qualification data, and the R&D tax credit data as R&D tax credit evidentiary data for the client business.