Automated taxable transaction reporting/collection system

Claim 1

A sales tax reporting system for automatically reporting financial transactions, which are subject to sales tax, to a central location, said system comprising at least one taxable transaction terminal disposed at each of a plurality of remote vendor locations for automatically recording taxable transaction occurrences on sales at said remote locations and including: means for automatically inputting a first numeric value representing a price attributable to a taxable transaction into said terminal; means for entering a second numeric value representing sales tax due for each said taxable transaction; means for storing said first and second numeric values; means for automatically generating transmissible data representing said stored first and second numeric values; and means for generating a printed tax receipt in response to said means for automatically generating transmissible data, said printed receipt displaying said first and second numeric values; at least one data collection sub-station in electronic, two-way communication with a portion of said plurality of taxable transaction terminals and operative to contact, on a rotating periodic basis, each of said taxable transaction terminals within said portion and receive therefrom said transmissible data; a central processing unit disposed at said central location and including a database having a data file corresponding to each said remote vendor location for storing said transmissible data generated at said remote vendor location, said central processing unit being programmed to generate on a periodic basis or when requested by an operator, a report of sales and tax due thereupon at a particular remote vendor location and stored in the respective data file; and an electronic data link connecting each said data collection sub-station with said central processing unit for automatic transmission of said transmissible data collected by said data collection sub-station.