This page gathers together resources available through the IUB Libraries or freely on the Internet that will be useful for tax research. Tax research requires an understanding of the basics of the U.S. legal system: how a bill is passed, the structure of the courts, and the many nuances of the Internal Revenue Service.

Selected Guides to Tax Research

Albany Law School: Guide on Tax Research Materials

Duke University Law School: Federal Tax

Washington University School of Law: Researching Federal Taxation

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Federal and State Tax Resources

Federal

Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

Current information and forms. Offers a hugh amount of information and options for retrieving tax materials.

THOMAS

Comprehensive information on Congressional bills, laws, proceedings provided by the Library of Congress, the Congressional Record and information on Members and Congressional Committees.

State

Indiana Department of Revenue

Other States

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Comprehensive Tax Research Databases

LexisNexis Academic [help] [tutorials]

In the left column, click on US Legal -> Tax Law. Other choices include Federal Statutes, Codes & Regulations or State Statutes, Codes & Regulations. LexisNexis has an extensive tax library. It includes the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, cases, IRS rulings and pronouncements, and daily and weekly current awareness services, as well as journals and other secondary source materials. LexisNexis provides the text of Wiley and Matthew Bender Treatises.

IntelliConnect (CCH) [help] [tutorials]

On campus access only. Access to federal and state tax libraries. Also the latest tax news, analysis, cases and other primary source materials.

Checkpoint (RIA) [help] [tutorial]

Provides comprehensive coverage of U.S. tax matters. The database includes a section of primary material and sources, with the complete federal tax code (back to 1990), regulations, committee reports, rulings (1954-current), and federal tax case histories (1860-current). The database also includes a Federal Tax Coordinator library arranged by topic, a U.S. Tax Reporter library arranged by code, a Federal Tax Handbook, a news/current awareness section, and a State & Local library with codes, cases, rulings, and legislation from all fifty states.

BNA Tax and Accounting Center [help]

Access provided by the Kelley School of Business; on campus only. Set-up a user account with your email address and name the first time you use the resource. Access only to the federal information; sections that are not in our subscription are greyed.

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Citators

LexisNexis' Shepard's Citations (click US Legal in the left column) can be used to update citations for tax materials. However, specialized tax citators do a better job of tracking all of the IRS administrative pronoucements and covering the specialized citation formats. Both IntelliConnect and Checkpoint have citators:

IntelliConnect: Click on Citator in the gray bar, top left.

Checkpoint: Click on "Find Federal Cases" from the left column; see "Citator 2nd" on the left.

See Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (online ed. 2010) for details on citation formats.

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Directories

TAXSites.com

"Tax and Accounting Sites Directory is a comprehensive index of web-based tax and accounting resources. The directory is designed to be a starting point for people who are searching for tax and accounting information, products, and services."

Tax Topics

Purpose is to provide a gateway to tax resources available on the World Wide Web. The information is organized by subject area.

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Periodicals, Newspapers, and Indexes

Selected Periodicals

Journal of Taxation

National Tax Journal

Tax Notes

Finding Articles on Tax Topics

ABI/INFORM Complete

Provides in-depth coverage of business and management issues (includes over 2,000 titles fulltext).

Business Source Premier

Regional, national and international business, financial, banking and industry publications (includes over 2,300 titles fulltext).

Factiva

General news and business information from over 28,000 sources from 157 countries. International newswires and pictures, TV and radio transcripts. Company search for competitors, comparisons, SEC documents.

LegalTrac

Index to major law reviews, legal newspapers, bar association journals and international legal journals.

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Statistics

Tax Statistics

From the IRS. Includes Statistics of Income Bulletin and IRS Data Books.

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Current Developments

IRS Latest News

Checkpoint and Intelliconnect provide current news/alerting services.

In Checkpoint, click on the News tab.

In Intelleconnect, click on Tracker News in the gray bar to set up email alerts.

THOMAS provides current information on Congressional bills, laws, proceedings.

Tax Analysts provides information on current tax issues in an informal manner from is free website, TAX.com.

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Using a VPN Connection

There are some resources, like Intelliconnect and BNA, that are only available from on the IUB campus. However, if you use a virtual private network (VPN), you can authenticate and act as part of the IU network even when you are off-campus.

The Basics of VPN at IU

For more information about establishing and using a VPN connection, use the UITS Knowledge base, and search for VPN

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RIA Checkpoint Accounts

To register for a Checkpoint username and password:

Go to http://ria.thomson.com/cploginids. You must be at a computer connected to the university in order for this to work.

A registration page appears. Fill it out. (if using IE 8, verify that you are in “compatibility mode” in order to accept the license agreement. To switch, click on the Tools menu and choose Compatibility View.)

After you “register”, you will receive an e-mail with your Checkpoint username and temporary password (the usernames are fairly long and can’t be changed). The e-mail contains a link to Checkpoint. (This normally takes less than 10 minutes.)

Go to Checkpoint using the link in the e-mail you receive or go to: http://www.checkpoint.riag.com

Enter your User Name provided above. User Names and passwords are not case sensitive.

Click the Login button. You will go through New User Setup screens, including a prompt to change your password. New passwords must be 7-20 characters and at least one letter and one number.

Once the process is finished, you can now access Checkpoint from any computer that has internet access (it does not need to be connected to the university.)

If you have any problems, please call Customer Support at 1-800-431-9025.

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Last updated August 28, 2012, mg