Computers facilitate with high speed and accuracy a vast myriad of commercial transactions—including credit card transactions. Merchants, who collect from their customers not only the retail charges for purchased goods and services but in addition collect customer payments for sales taxes on those purchases, are responsible for periodically transmitting to the appropriate taxing authority the accumulated tax payments received, typically monthly or quarterly for State taxing authorities. At the end of each such period, some merchants find that they have spent or otherwise failed to segregate and retain sufficient funds to make the required tax payment to the taxing authority.
There is a need to for an improved method by which a merchant may allocate and escrow funds for periodic payment of customer sales taxes owed to a tax authority. Toward this end, it is highly desirable that the improved method enable collection, escrowing and payment to be performed by one or more third parties in order to enable the merchant's direct participation may be limited to a “passive” role. In addition, the method must be capable of generating appropriate payment forms and reports as required by the merchant and the taxing authority.