Federal Tax Research

This lesson on federal tax research covers the legislative, administrative, and judicial materials used in the specialized area of tax law. A basic knowledge of primary sources such as statutes, regulations, and cases; secondary sources such as treatises, law reviews, newsletters, citators, digests, and periodical indexes is assumed. Federal taxation is a specialized field with many publications devoted solely to federal taxes. For general background there are many excellent CALI Lessons, including, but not limited to Researching Federal Legislative History, Forms of Statutory Publication, Introduction to Secondary Resources, and Updating/Validating Case Law Using Citators.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Identify and use the major legislative, administrative, and judicial federal tax resources.
2. Assess the features of federal tax research tools.
3. Apply both the topic and code methods to effectively research federal tax issues.