Tax return outsourcing and systems for protecting data

A financial services outsourcing method for facilitating outsourcing of tax return preparation services for numerous clients on behalf of a direct service provider serving the numerous clients, the financial services being outsourced to a given outsourcing group, the clients comprising a first set of clients in a first country, having tax return filing obligations for the first country, and comprising a second set of clients in a second country having tax return filing obligations for the second country, the method comprising:

• for the direct service provider, loading, onto a remotely accessible part of a host server, client specific financial files and corresponding reference materials, the host server providing access to a remote computer client of information concerning the client specific financial files and corresponding reference materials;
• providing outsourced personnel with limited screen shot access to the host server connected through a remote limited access client located outside the first and second countries, wherein the direct service provider has control of the host server and the client specific financial files and corresponding reference materials pertaining to a given tax return loaded thereon;
• preparing tax returns for the clients of the direct service provider by the outsourced personnel, the outsourced personnel located outside the first and second countries and utilizing the limited screen shot access of the client specific financial files and corresponding reference materials on the host server;
• and
• monitoring and reporting to the direct service provider a status of the tax return preparation during the tax return preparation performed by the outsourced personnel, wherein the direct service provider can obtain a status report in response to a status change occurring with the tax return preparation.