Patent ID: 7693760

Claim:
A method for providing a configurable tax service, comprising: receiving a tax computation request from a subscriber at a system which comprises a tax-rule-base module which stores tax rules and a tax-knowledge-base module which stores tax data, wherein the tax-rule-base module is separate from the tax-knowledge-base module; receiving the tax rules for a local jurisdiction from an external source; feeding the tax rules into a tax engine that is configured to use externally specified rules for local jurisdictions in performing tax computations, wherein the tax engine determines at least a tax regime and a tax jurisdiction at a given level of granularity; using the tax engine to calculate the tax for the local jurisdiction, wherein the tax engine determines an applicable tax, a taxable basis for the applicable tax, and a tax status for the applicable tax using the tax rules for the local jurisdiction from the tax-rule-base module and the tax data from the tax-knowledge-base module; using a result of the calculations in servicing the request; recording the result; and using the recorded results to report tax liabilities and assets to a tax authority for the local jurisdiction at periodic intervals.