Patent ID: 7895097

Claim:
An intelligent, program controlled system having modular programming for automatically identifying taxable financial transactions, collecting data based on the transactions, calculating in real-time any taxes due on the transactions, reporting the same to a selected government authority, and periodically remitting funds corresponding to the tax owed to the government authorities over an interactive communications network, the system comprising: a first server associated with a merchant and hosting a first virtual portal, the first virtual portal having at least one application for providing e-content to end users, the application including a network browser for accessing, displaying and transmitting data over the network; and a service provider computer system associated with a service provider to which the merchant is subscribed, the service provider computer system comprising: a second server hosting a second virtual portal, the second virtual portal having at least one application for receiving data from the first server and for parsing the data received; a communications infrastructure linking the first and second servers to one another; a third server hosting a third virtual portal, the third virtual portal having at least one application for receiving transactional data from the second server, parsing the transactional data received for XML-based data, interpreting the XML-based data for selected data processing operations, storing the XML-based data in a first selected file of a first database, computing any taxes due on the corresponding transaction, and storing the tax due in a second selected first database file; and a fourth server hosting a fourth virtual portal, the fourth virtual portal having at least one application for receiving XML-based data from the third server, converting the second selected first database file from an XML-based format to a TXP-based format for receipt by an automated clearinghouse network, and periodically transmitting the second file, through the network, to a selected financial institution for remission of funds corresponding to the transactional data to the government authority.