This outline provides an overview of the different types of tax law research resources. The first part of the outline focuses on tax-specific materials available online, specifically, primary authority, secondary authority, and bibliogrphies of online tax information. The focus is on free resources, but some reference to subscription or pay-as-you-go services is also included.
The second part of the outline references tax resources in print - treatises, multi-volume looseleaf services, current awareness services and periodicals.
The remainder of the outline focuses on online legal resources of a more general nature. The section entitled 'General legal resources' outline sets forth several legal information sites, commercial and non-, that enable access to a wide variety of primary and secondary authority. 'Vehicles for searching the Internet' provides a brief explanation of the types of Internet search tools available.
This outline was prepared by Jeanne Price, former Director of Public Services at the Tarlton Law Library.
U.S. Constitution and Internal Revenue code
United States House of Representatives
T he official online version of the United States Code. Often not as current
as other sources
always
check the date (set forth at the top of each Code section) that indicates
the most recent changes incorporated.
http://uscode.house.gov/title_26.htm
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute
Uses the version of the Code supplied by the House of Representatives, but
includes a service enabling the user to update each section by reference
to Thomas, the legislative information site maintained by the Library of
Congress.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/income_tax.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/estate_gift_tax.html
Library of Congress - Thomas - Legislative Information on the Internet
P rovides most current information on recently enacted and pending legislation.
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Internal Revenue Service regulatory and administrative materials
Internal Revenue Service regulations Code of Federal Regulations
National Archives and Records Administration
Sets forth the entire Code of Federal Regulations and provides a mechanism
for updating sections. http://lula.law.cornell.edu/cfr/cfr.php?title=26&type=title&value=26
(if you know the regulation you are looking for)
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html#page1
(to search or browse Title 26)
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute
P rovides access to Title 26 of the Code of Federal Regulations
Sections require updating
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/income_tax.html
(income tax sections)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/estate_gift_tax.html
(estate and gift tax sections)
Internal Revenue Service
A ccess to all regulations adopted since 1995, full text of Internal Revenue
Bulletins since 1996, information concerning, and full text of, major tax
legislation, revenue rulings on applicable federal rates; links to United
States Code, Code of Federal Regulations and Federal Register; includes
topic-specific sites collecting information and forms in one location (e.g.,
"Small Business and Self-Employed Community", "Excise Tax", etc.). Tax Professional's
Corner (http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/index.html)
includes, among other information, the full text of proposed revenue rulings,
revenue procedures and other technical items before they are published in
the Internal Revenue Bulletin (http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0,,id=98697,00.html),
the Internal Revenue Bulletin itself (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/lists/0,,id=98230,00.html),
and proposed drafts of tax forms (http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/lists/0,,id=97784,00.html).
The Tax Professional's Corner also provides an opportunity for users to
subscribe to IRS list-servs and e-mail notification services (http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0,,id=99120,00.html).
The Internal Revenue Manual is available at http://www.irs.gov/irm/page/0,,id=21023,00.html
and forms and instructions may be accessed at http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/index.html.
Revenue rulings
Tax Links
Provides full text access to all Revenue Rulings beginning
in 1954.
http://www.taxlinks.com/
Quasi-adjudicative materials
Letter rulings, technical advice memoranda, general counsel memoranda
Not readily available free of charge. Lexis, Westlaw, Tax Analysts, and
CCH's Internet Tax Research Network, all subscription sevices, provide
access to recent letter rulings, technical advice memoranda, field service
advice, general and chief counsel memoranda, and litigation guideline
memoranda.
Federal judiciary
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute
Provides full text access to historic and recent (from 1990) tax cases in
the U.S. Supreme Court, recent (from 1995) tax cases in the federal courts
of appeals, and links to the official site of the U. S. Tax Court.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/income_tax.html
(income tax cases)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/estate_gift_tax.html
(estate tax cases)
United States Tax Court
Provides full text access to Tax Court
and Memorandum Opinions beginning in 1999 and Summary Opinions beginning
in 2001.
http://www.ustaxcourt.gov
State materials
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute
Provides links to state statutes dealing with taxation. Also provides access
to tax cases decided by the New York state courts of appeal.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/income_tax.html
Tax and Accounting Sites Directory
Provides links to state tax
statutes and administrative materials.
http://www.taxsites.com/state.html
Foreign and international materials
Internal Revenue Service
Provides full text of income tax treaties
entered into by the United States. As treaties are ratified, they are
also published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/lists/0,,id=98230,00.html).
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/article/0,,id=96739,00.html
Tax and Accounting Sites Directory
Links to tax resources of
foreign governments - some primary source material included.
http://www.taxsites.com/international.html
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_toptax.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.tax.org/TaxWire/taxwire.htm
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://tax.org/
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
There exist a number of portals or gateways to tax information on the Internet. Depending on the specific site, these may or may not be updated on a regular basis. These portals generally organize online available tax materials by subject or type of source. A sampling of portal sites is set forth below.
Tax Section, American Bar Association — Links
Internal Revenue Service — Tax Professionals — General Tax Research
Tax and Accounting Sites Directory
Internet Law Library — Taxation
There are any number of treatises focusing on tax law available. For a complete list of tax treatises, consult the Tarlton Law Library's TALLONS online catalog under the subject heading 'Income tax -- Law and legislation -- United States'. The treatises set forth below represent a sampling of the kinds of materials that should be available at major law libraries.
Several commercial vendors publish multi-volume looseleaf services that provide the full text of legislation, administrative regulations and adjudicative materials, and explanatory materials. The most widely used of the services are set forth below.
Services organized by Code section
Services organized by subject
Online alternatives to comprehensive looseleaf series
There are any number of current awareness services provided by publishers of tax related materials. Most resources are available in both online and print media. Some of the more widely distributed publications are set forth below.
Tax Analysts publications
BNA publications
Commercial publishers, law schools, and professional associations all publish and distribute tax-related journals. Examples of those periodicals are set forth below. For a more complete list of tax-related periodicals, consult the Library's online catalog, Tallons, under the subject heading "Tax - Law and legislation - United States - Periodicals."
Law school publicaitons
Association publications