Solving Tax Research Puzzles (Currently Unavailable)

Author: Jennifer Kowal

Per the IRS Education Provider Standards this course must be COMPLETED by 12/31/2024 to receive credits. NOTE: Go to My Professional Profile in your CCH CPELink account settings to ensure your name, and PTIN number; matches your PTIN card

With high client demands for fast results, it is more important than ever to perform tax research accurately, thoroughly and efficiently. Frequent, complicated changes to the tax law mean that even experienced tax professionals often need to research tax questions. Despite our tendency to internet keyword search every question these days, this is not a great strategy for tax research, as keyword searching without a frame of reference (or knowledge of the right keywords) is often the least efficient and effective way to answer tax research questions. This course teaches a systematic research methodology that tax researchers may use in order to identify and analyze tax issues efficiently, accurately and thoroughly.

Publication Date: March 2022

Designed For
Tax practitioners at all levels who perform tax research.

Topics Covered

• How to take a transactional approach to answering research questions to efficiently identify all important tax issues
• The different types of primary sources of tax law, and their hierarchy of authority
• How to use secondary sources and annotations efficiently
• How to use explanations and annotations to find the most relevant primary authorities
• When and how to use legislative history in their tax research
• How to stay on track throughout the research process and how to prepare a research outline
• Ethical considerations in performing tax research and formulating conclusions

Learning Objectives

• Differentiate types of primary sources of tax law and the hierarchy of authority
• Identify situations where editorial and secondary sources are most useful
• Describe how to use the IRC and Treasury Regulations as a jumping off point for tax research
• Identify different types of tax law legislative history
• Identify an example of treatises and other authoritative secondary sources
• Identify an example of Looseleaf services
• Identifty which type of secondary source of authority the Journal of Taxation is classified as
• Identify the type of information that is included on the "bullseye" of the tax research target
• Identify an example of an administrative source of primary authority
• Identify the government body that has the power to issue regulations necessary for enforcement of the IRC
• Idenitfy who issues revenue rulings and revenue procedures
• Identify the number of federal circuit courts of appeal
• Identify the first step in developing a research plan

Level
Intermediate

Instructional Method
Self-Study

NASBA Field of Study
Taxes (4 hours)

Program Prerequisites
Basic experience with tax research.

Advance Preparation
None