Predictive model based identification of potential errors in electronic tax return

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• a computerized tax return preparation system, comprising a tax return preparation software application stored in a data store of a computing device and executed by a processor of the computing device and operable to prepare an electronic tax return of a taxpayer, and a predictive model based validation module operable to analyze data of the electronic tax return, receive taxpayer-related data and tax data and populate a field of the electronic tax return with the tax data, the tax return preparation software application having a modular architecture comprising a tax calculation engine, a completeness model comprising at least one decision table, a tax logic agent in communication with or comprising the predictive model based validation module, and a user interface management module loosely coupled to the tax logic agent;
• the computerized tax return preparation system being configured to select, by the predictive model based validation module, a first predictive model associated with the taxpayer-related data, wherein the selected predictive model is an algorithm created using a modeling technique selected from the group consisting of logistic regression, naive bayes, K-means clustering, clustering, k-nearest neighbor, or neural networks;
• the computerized tax return preparation system being configured to execute, by the predictive model based validation module, the predictive model in response to the field being populated with the tax data and utilizing the taxpayer related data as an input into the predictive model, an output being generated by execution of the predictive model;
• the computerized tax return preparation system being configured to compare, by the predictive model based validation module, the first output generated by executing the predictive model and the first tax data;
• the computerized tax return preparation system being configured to determine, by the tax return preparation software application, that the first tax data does not satisfy a pre-determined criterion relative to the output generated by executing the predictive model;
• the computerized tax return preparation system being configured to prepare, by the tax logic agent, a non-binding suggestion in response to determining, through the use of a corresponding declarative constraint, that the second tax data does not satisfy pre-determined criterion relative to the output generated by executing the predictive model, and transmitting the non-binding suggestion to the user interface management module;
• and
• the computerized tax return preparation system being configured to, by the user interface management module, determine through the use of a configuration file whether to consider or ignore the non-binding suggestion and in response to determining to consider the non-binding suggestion, generating an alert identifying at least one of the first tax data and the first field, and presenting the alert to the taxpayer.