Seasoned tax professionals have long mastered the intricacies of tax research and the diverse document types that make up the massive collection of sources that must be navigated. For new tax professionals, however, navigating the morass of legal authority, the kinds of documents, and the sheer volume of documents can be overwhelming. To be a successful tax researcher requires a basic understanding of the sources of tax law as well as how those individual sources relate to each other.
As with any form of research, some sources of content are more authoritative than other sources. In doing tax research, the goal is to find what the law dictates about a particular issue. The Internal Revenue Code is, therefore, the primary and ultimate authority for federal tax research.
If the answer is clearly stated in the statute, it is still important to check for any further developments, such as regulations or judicial decisions that interpret the law and apply that law to a given set of facts. In addition, given the frequency of the changes to laws and regulations, it is important to be aware of any proposed modifications to the statute or related regulations.
In going beyond statutes for tax information, it is important to keep in mind the relative authority of the source of the tax information. Some important sources are not authoritative at all, offering only guidance. Still, guidance can be very important to a tax research project where the authoritative sources do not directly answer the question.