US Patent 10482542 Tax fraud detection through linked relationships

Determining whether a subject tax return is fraudulent includes extracting from the subject tax return information and identifying one or more subject nodes based on the extracted information. Separately, a plurality of external nodes is generated based upon previously filed tax returns. At least a portion of the plurality of external nodes is fraud-indicative nodes. The subject nodes are compared to the external nodes to identify shared relationships of related information, such as a tax return related to an external node having the same bank account information as the subject tax return related to the subject node. Based upon shared information, links are determined to indicate whether the subject node is indicative of fraud.