Legislative histories and administration position papers
Thomas (Library of Congress) — House and senate documents prepared in connection with recently enacted and proposed federal legislation can be found on Thomas, the Library of Congress' Internet site designed to provide legislative information (http://thomas.loc.gov/). Committee reports for the 104th through the 107th Congressess are available, as are issues of the Congressional Record beginning with the 101st Congress. There is some information available regarding all bills considered since the beginning of the 93rd Congress, although the older the bill, the less information is available.
Office of tax policy — The Department of Treasury's Office of Tax Policy publishes from time to time tax policy documents. These papers may indicate the position of the Administration with respect to tax issues and are available online at http://www.treas.gov/taxpolicy/documents.html. The Office of Tax Policy also includes on its site Congressional testimony, reports prepared for Congress concerning tax treaties and other matters, reports prepared by the Office of Tax Analysis, the "2001 Blue Book — General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2002 Tax Relief Proposals", and other tax-related materials. Copies of conventions and protocols entered into by the United States with foreign governments are also available online through the Office of Tax Policy.
Legislative summaries and legislative and regulatory updates
Any number of commercial enterprises offer free online summaries of recently enacted tax legislation and updates on legislative and regulatory activity in the tax domain. Providers of this type of information range from law and accounting firms to tax publishers to professional associations. Set forth below is a sampling of the organizations that provide updates, explanations, overviews, or summaries of tax legislation and regulations and links to some of those documents themselves.
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (legislative
and regulatory updates)
http://www.aicpa.org/index.htm
BNA Tax Management — Current Tax Developments (legislative and
regulatory updates)
http://www.bnatax.com/tm/developments.htm
Commerce Clearing House —
Tax Briefings (summary of Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation
Act of 2001) http://tax.cchgroup.com/news/cch-tax-briefing-05-29-01.asp
Tax News (news and updates)
http://tax.cchgroup.com/
RIA (legislative and regulatory updates)
http://ria.thomson.com
Tax Analysts — TaxWire (legislative and regulatory updates)
http://www.taxanalysts.com/
KPMG (summary of Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation
Act of 2001)
http://www.us.kpmg.com/microsite/taxnewsflash/2001/TaxBook/index.html
Proposed legislation and / or regulations
American Bar Association, Tax Section — The Tax Section of
the American Bar Association includes on its website a number of resources
dealing with proposed tax legislation and IRS regulations. The full text
of comments on regulations and practice ethics submitted by the Tax Section
and the ABA are available (http://www.abanet.org/tax/pubpolicy/2001/regindex.html),
as are letters and testimony delivered by those entities dating back to
1997 (http://www.abanet.org/tax/pubpolicy/2001/ltindex.html).
The Tax Section's Manual on Government Submissions (http://www.abanet.org/tax/groups/cogs/home.html)
and the ABA's Legislative and Governmental Issues List are also available
online (http://www.abanet.org/poladv/lgpolicy.html).
Electronic journals
American Bar Association, Tax Section — Portions of the ABA Section of Taxation Newsletter are available online free of charge. Tables of contents of The Tax Lawyer (http://www.abanet.org/tax/pubs/ttl/home.html) and State and Local Tax Lawyer (http://www.abanet.org/tax/pubs/saltl/home.html) are also available electronically free of charge, but only members of the Tax Section may access the full text of articles.
The National Tax Journal — Archived articles dated from 1988 through
1997 of the National Tax Journal are made available online free of charge
by the by the National Tax Association. Articles more than two years old
will be posted online from time to time.
http://ntj.tax.org/
Articles, briefs, memoranda, mini-treatises
As with all secondary sources, the quality and reliability of these online articles and memoranda vary dramatically. Many of the sites have obviously not been recently updated.
Tax Analysts — A variety of information is available online and free of charge, including email alerts on worldwide, federal, and state tax developments. http://www.taxanalysts.com/
Pillsbury Winthrop — Pillsbury Winthrop, a national law firm has
published online any number of tax bulletins, ranging in date from 1995
to 2001 and categorized into the following subject headings - corporate
tax, international tax, partnership tax, (including subchapter S material),
general tax, state and local tax, and exempt organizations. Some of these
materials are papers presented by members of the law firm at continuing
legal education seminars and conferences.
http://pmstax.com/ and http://pmstax.com/bulletins.shtml
Tax Resources Group — A site that provides a library of tax memoranda
ostensibly prepared for real clients. Most of the memoranda are a few
years old (many of them date from 1995) and even the news articles are
dated no later than 1998.
http://www.taxresourcegroup.com/
List-servs and discussion boards
American Bar Association, Tax Section — The Tax Section of the
American Bar Association sponsors a number of tax-related list-servs,
most of which are apparently open for public subscription.
http://abanet.org/tax/discuss.html
Uniform laws
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute — Cornell makes freely available online the full text of uniform laws and references to the states that have adopted versions of those uniform laws. Through the income tax topic page (http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/income_tax.html), the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act is available and, through the estate and gift tax topic page (http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/estate_gift_tax.html), each of the Interstate Arbitration of Death Taxes, Interstate Compromise of Death Taxes, Estate Tax Apportionment Act (1958), and Estate Tax Apportionment Act (1964) are available.
State sales and income tax rates
Federation of Tax Administrators — publishes free outlines setting
forth state individual and corporate income tax rates and state and local
sales taxes.
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/tax_stru.html
Sales Tax Clearinghouse — provides more detailed information (on
a subscription basis) concerning the sales tax rates of various localities
within the 50 states.
http://theSTC.com/STrates.stm
State tax statistics
Census Bureau — The United States Census Bureau publishes periodic
surveys of state and local government tax collections.
http://www.census.gov/govs/www/taxgen.html
Foreign and international materials
Ernst & Young — Ernst & Young publishes a wealth
of materials on conducting business outside the United States. Some of this
material is available free of charge; access to other mateiral requires
registration. Ernst & Young publishes country guides entitled "Doing Busines
in ...."which detail tax implications of engaging in business in particular
foreign countries. Some of those publications are available free of charge.
http://www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/International/Services_-_Tax
Rowbotham — Rowbotham (a group of accountants and international
tax consultants based in Silicon Valley) publishes a very limited number
of country profiles that include individual and corporate tax rates, among
other tax and investment information.
http://www.rowbotham.com/knowledgenet/countryprofs.htm