VerTec Solutions Provides Tax Assistance with Adobe PDF and Amzi! Logic
Server Over Internet

April 8, 1996--VerTec Solutions, Inc. announced today the release of their
tax submission software -- CyberTax. CyberTax is a combined effort on the
parts of VerTec Solutions, Inc. of Greensboro, NC; Adobe Systems, Inc. of
Mountain View, California, and Nelco, Inc. of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The
vision was to merge the technologies of the Adobe Acrobat Portable
Document Format (PDF) and VerTec's TranZform plug-in software together
with Nelco's expertise in electronic tax filing to allow the general
public to file federal taxes electronically by modem or via the Internet.
CyberTax is not a "stand-alone" software product, but a software
enhancement to Adobe Reader v2.1, which must be installed before CyberTax
will execute. By utilizing the technology and know-how of the three
companies, CyberTax brings a wide-range of assistance to the personal
filer.

To further assist the personal filer, VerTec employed a specialized
Artificial Intelligence Knowledge Base, written in Prolog with Amzi!
Prolog Logic Server, in their application. Prolog is a programming
language designed for solving problems that involve different objects and
relations between objects. It uses logic to express knowledge, and it uses
inference to manipulate knowledge. The Knowledge Base, in order to
eliminate human errors, performs calculations, carries information forward
to appropriate fields, and sums total amounts automatically.

Prolog, a declarative programming language, was chosen to represent the tax
rules because of the nature of the tax rules--they change every year and
are made up of rules for relating data. Also, since tax forms contain so
many duplicate values, Prolog provided the best means to handle the
redundant values on all the forms. Due to Prolog, the user has no need to
enter the same information more than once. Currently, CyberTax contains
approximately 800 rules and supports 22 of the most commonly used federal
tax forms, including multiple W-2s, W-2Gs, and 1099Rs.

The workflow for CyberTax is simple due to Prolog handling most of the
logic for each form. Users simply enter their tax information by tabbing
to and entering data into simple edit boxes. After the data is entered, it
is passed to the built-in Knowledge Base which analyzes the information.
This approach provides a quick and effective means to perform all of the
related computations in all of the supported tax forms. The method also
works well for getting estimated tax results. For example, a user could
enter guess values into the edit boxes. The program would then handle the
computations, thus allowing a user to get a feel for what the tax
situation would be under certain circumstances.

Once the tax return has been completed, the system sends the data to a
verification module to ensure that there are no obvious mistakes. After
passing the verification process, the tax information may be sent
electronically, or by mail.

For more information about CyberTax, please contact:
VerTec Solutions, Inc. 5601 Roanne Way, #606, Greensboro, NC 27409
Tel: 910-855-9555, Fax: 910-855-1766
info@vertec.com, http://www.vertec.com

For more information about Amzi! Prolog + Logic Server, please contact:
Mary Kroening, mary@amzi.com
Amzi! inc. 40 Samuel Prescott Drive, Stow, MA 01775
Tel: 508-897-7332, Fax: 508-897-2784, info@amzi.com, http://www.amzi.com
 
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