Bus. 223A - Tax Research & Decision-making

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Additional Reading Beyond the Course Textbooks

These questions provide an overview to the course and should be helpful in preparing for the final exam.

Avoiding Plagiarism - read this web material including the paper from Professor Nellen and take the plagiarism tutorial included at this link

Navigating the IRS Website (optional, 1 hour) video created by the IRS

B

Tax History:

• Brief history of federal taxation from the Congressional Research Service
• Timeline from the IRS (skim)
• Tax trivia from the IRS (optional)
• Essay on taxes back in the time of the Civil War from the Library of Congress (optional; interesting insights to the complexity of the tax law)
• Copy of 16th Amendment
• Copy of first modern income tax form
• "I Paid My Income Tax Today" by Irving Berlin - (optional) this famous songwriter ("There's No Business Like Show Business," "God Bless America," "White Christmas," music for "Annie Get Your Gun," and lots more) wrote this song for the Treasury in 1942 and a Treasury official held the copyright. More people became subject to income tax in the 1940s and rates were very high. It was also a very patriotic time to help the war effort. This link is to a blog where the blogger also has the Treasury Dept .documents about the song including the lyrics and a link to an mp3 file of Danny Kaye singing the song, although he doesn't sing the last verse (see the documents for that). Gene Autry also made a recording of the song. This link is included here just for something different, your professor is neutral as to the comments on the blog (your professor is a big Irving Berlin fan though).
• A glimpse into income tax history via selected articles from the New York Times: (skim to get a sense of issues and how some sound like the same ones we read about today)
  • "Will Either Rule or Ruin," New York Times, January 28, 1894
  • "The Income Tax Amendment," New York Times,  July 14, 1909 (note the comment that an income tax "would demand mature and deliberate consideration."
  • "Income Tax Upheld in Broad Decision," New York Times, January 25, 1916

RIA Terminology used in the RIA Citator (pdf)

Paygo rules - article by PWC, 2/15/10

US Treasury information on writing and enacting tax legislation

IRS website on guidance it releases - here

IRM section for its employees on researching the tax law

Welcome to Tax Court - optional (watch the video if you are interested in Tax Court filings and operations)

Powerpoints slides to critique in class

F

F

Tax Journals and Other Tools

• Tax treaty information from the IRS

• Evaluating and Comparing Journals and Newsletter [also in Course Reader]

• Links to some tax journals:
  • AICPA Tax Tax Adviser
  • AICPA Journal of Accountancy
  • AICPA CPA Letter Daily
  • Various AICPA Newsletters
    • Professor Nellen's AICPA Newsletter articles
  • You can find the Journal of Taxation and a few other RIA journals via RIA Checkpoint
  • You can find Taxes Magazine via CCH
  • You can find several other tax journals using your student access to the King Library e-journals
  • You can find various newsletters from CPA and law firms via a Google search

• BNA Income Tax Series Portfolio titles*

• BNA Multistate Tax Portfolio titles*

• Treatises:

  • Examples from RIA

  • Federal Tax Valuation treatise (including picture)

• IRS Publication 78 on charitable organizations

• Internal Revenue Manual (also searchable on RIA and CCH)

• IRS - Miscellaneous items  and   Electronic Reading Room

• IRS - Information on tax treaties  +   link to tax treaties

* You can access these portfolios by accessing the database online files in the King Library. Here is the link to get to the BNA Tax Management Portfolios.

Sample Court Case Brief [no need to print; use it online]

[no need to print; use online]

H

IRC §6713 and §7216 disclosure penalties - short article (12/08)

Forms 8275 and 8275-R  - Available at IRS Forms Site.

Rev. Proc. 2010-15, 2010-7 IRB ___ (skim), updated by Rev. Proc. 2011-13, 2011-3 IRB 318 - when disclosure on return is adequate per §6662(d) and §6694(a)

Information on IRS Office of Professional Responsibility http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/opr_trifold_-_who_we_are__what_we_do_updated_06_21_10.pdf

AICPA's Statements on Standards for Tax Services (SSTS) - Version effective 1/1/10      

Podcast on the above questions - access on Desire2Learn