Unisys & Pennsylvania Department of Revenue Develop Country's First Fully Integrated Image-based Tax Processing System.BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 11, 1997-- Phase One of Implementation Shows Department Reaps Productivity Increase of 400%; Image-Based Processing System To Completely Automate Sales, Employer Withholding and Income Tax Processes Unisys Corp. announced Monday that in its ongoing relationship with the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (PADOR), it has been awarded contracts totaling $14.2 million to continue development of the country's first fully integrated image-based tax processing system. Since phase one of the project was implemented, PADOR has improved overall management of the department's sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. system and increased productivity by 400%. The Unisys developed image-based tax processing system is the only system to combine all five functional areas -- remittance Money sent from one individual to another in the form of cash, check, or some other manner. Financial statements sent by a creditor to a debtor frequently refer to the process of submitting a monthly remittance. REMITTANCE, comm. law. processing, data capture, error resolution, archiving and ad-hoc inquiries such as auditing and collections -- to completely automate and integrate the Department's high volume of tax payments to a nearly error-free and paperless environment. Additionally, it will enable the department to archive online three years of sales and employer withholding taxes The amount legally deducted from an employee's wages or salary by the employer, who uses it to prepay the charges imposed by the government on the employee's yearly earnings. (approximately 7.5 and 12 million returns, respectively) and one year of income tax records (approximately 5 million returns and 25 million associated schedules and other documents) on optical disk space, requiring 63 square feet of storage space. Currently, paper records are stored in a warehouse holding 13.4 miles of paper, equal to 17 times the length of the Golden Gate Bridge Golden Gate Bridge, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco to Marin Co., W Calif.; built 1933–37. Its overall length is 9,266 ft (2,824 m); its main span across the strait, 4,200 ft (1,280 m), is one of the longest bridges in the world. Joseph B. , whereas optical storage space fills an area equivalent to a compact sedan Sedan (sədäN`), town (1990 pop. 22,407), Ardennes dept., NE France, on the Meuse River. A noted textile center since the 16th cent., Sedan also has metal and brewing industries. The town became part of French crown lands in 1642. . "We are completely revolutionizing the way we do business and provide service," said Robert A. Judge Sr., Secretary of the Department of Revenue. "The Unisys image-based tax processing system is helping Pennsylvania DOR Dor or Dora, Canaanite seaport, ancient Palestine (modern Israel), N of Caesarea Palestinae. It was never a Jewish city but rather a Phoenician outpost. It was rebuilt by the Romans; still visible are the ruins of a temple and a theater. reach its goal of becoming a more sophisticated and customer focused organization." The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue processes more than 140,000 returns daily during peak periods, four million employer withholding tax forms annually, 2.5 million sales tax returns annually and 5.6 million personal income tax returns per year. Prior to implementing the Unisys image-based tax system, PADOR was processing paper documents manually, resulting in escalating labor costs for third-party data entry services and the movement and storage of mass amounts of excess paper. Another drawback included frequent inaccuracies in tax processing. Unisys began working with Pennsylvania in April 1996 to create a fully integrated image-based sales and income tax processing system that can scan and capture an electronic image of the entire tax form and send the image electronically to another computer that reads both handwritten hand·write tr.v. hand·wrote , hand·writ·ten , hand·writ·ing, hand·writes To write by hand. [Back-formation from handwritten.] Adj. 1. and machine-generated returns. Currently, the Unisys system processes sales taxes, with employer withholding to follow in November 1997 and personal income tax in February 1998. Income tax processing capabilities that were traditionally outsourced will be added without impact on headcount of the department. The new system will employ cutting edge client server and imaging technology to develop one of the most advanced tax processing systems in the country. At the same time, Pennsylvania DOR will improve customer service and eliminate mass amounts of paper documents. Access to taxpayer information will be nearly instantaneous compared to the paper retrieval process which took days to retrieve before the imaging system was implemented. Other benefits include: -- Manual data entry of remittance processing has been reduced by more than 50% -- Data reduction: manual keying of sales tax returns has been reduced by more than 94% -- Improved tax processing accuracy by 150% -- Movement of mass amounts of paper eliminated "The Unisys partnership with Pennsylvania DOR supports an ongoing effort to help tax and revenue agencies improve their operations and provide better service to their customers," said Earl Baker, Unisys vice president, Tax and Revenue Practice, Information Services See Information Systems. Group. "We are thrilled to see the growth of this relationship and look forward to helping Pennsylvania DOR develop the most advanced tax processing system in the country." Configuration The Unisys InfoImage imaging system consists of client/server technology using Unisys and Hewlett-Packard servers running Windows NT (Windows New Technology) A 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. NT is the core technology in Windows 2000 and Windows XP (see Windows). Available in separate client and server versions, it includes built-in networking and preemptive multitasking. , along with the latest scanning and electronic image jukebox A storage device for multiple sets of CD-ROMs, DVDs, tape cartridges or disk modules. Using carousels, robot arms and other methods, a jukebox physically moves the storage medium from its assigned location to an optical or magnetic station for reading and writing. technology. Tax form data is captured via ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition or Image Character Recognition) The machine recognition of hand-printed characters as well as machine printing that is difficult to recognize. (Intelligent Character Recognition In computer science, intelligent character recognition (ICR) is an advanced optical character recognition (OCR) system that allows fonts and different styles of hand writing to be learned by a computer during processing to improve accuracy and recognition levels. ) and is fed into the KITS (Keystone key·stone n. 1. Architecture The central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks its parts together. Also called headstone. 2. The central supporting element of a whole. Integrated Tax System) for processing. The imaging system is built largely with hardware and integration services from Unisys and image-enabled remittance processing software from J & B Software. The key technologies that make PADOR a leader in large scale automated remittance processing are ICR, imaging and workflow. ICR software, supplied by Web Systems, a Unisys partner, recognizes machine and hand printed data, while Edit software intimately combines images with data on screen and enables operators to work more efficiently than ever. Workflow software ensures maximum staff and system productivity by queuing batches of images from one step in the process to the next. Unisys in the Public Sector Unisys information management solutions are helping governments be more responsive to their citizens in major areas, including social services social services Noun, pl welfare services provided by local authorities or a state agency for people with particular social needs social services npl → servicios mpl sociales , justice and safety, revenue and taxation, customs and postal services postal service, arrangements made by a government for the transmission of letters, packages, and periodicals, and for related services. Early courier systems for government use were organized in the Persian Empire under Cyrus, in the Roman Empire, and in medieval . As one of the top providers of commercial information services and technology, Unisys solutions are at work in the U.S. federal government, all 50 U.S. states A U.S. state is any one of the fifty subnational entities of the United States, although four states use the official title "commonwealth". The separate state governments and the federal government share sovereignty, in that an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and , nine Canadian provinces Noun 1. Canadian province - Canada is divided into 12 provinces for administrative purposes province, state - the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation; "his state is in the deep south" and more than 1,500 government agencies worldwide. Unisys solutions help deliver benefits to more than half of all U.S. public assistance recipients, help protect the lives and property of more than half of the U.S. population and help process tax returns in the U.S., Sweden and New Zealand New Zealand (zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. . Unisys Information Services As one of the three core businesses of Unisys Corp., Information Services designs, builds, and integrates business solutions that help clients improve their competitive edge and responsiveness to customers. To learn more about Information Services, access www. unisys.com/isg on the World Wide Web. Unisys -- The Information Management Company Unisys is one of a select group of companies with the portfolio of services, technologies and third party alliances needed to deliver the benefits of information management -- helping clients use their information asset to enhance their competitiveness and responsiveness to customers. Our expertise in information management is founded on the strengths of our three global businesses: consulting, solutions and systems integration; industry-leading technologies; and comprehensive services and products supporting distributed computing environments See DCE. Distributed Computing Environment - (DCE) An architecture consisting of standard programming interfaces, conventions and server functionalities (e.g. naming, distributed file system, remote procedure call) for distributing applications transparently across networks . Access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web -- http://www.unisys.com -- for further information. -0- Unisys is a registered trademark of Unisys Corp. All other brands and products referenced herein are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. CONTACT: Unisys Corp. Dan Baccino, 215/986-3507 Internet: danbaccino@unn.unisys.com or Copithorne & Bellows Lisa Spellman/Ken Day, 617/450-4300 Internets: lisa.spellman@cbpr.com/ken.day@cbpr.com |
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