Tax Law
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offers a special Web site devoted to individual tax returns. In addition to highlighting changes in tax law from the previous year, it provides tax-related news, tips, questions and answers, forms and publications and information about electronic filing.
This Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Web site is devoted to the identification, analysis and examination of abusive tax shelter schemes and promotions. Find press releases as well as information about "listed transactions." Listed transactions are transactions that are "the same as or substantially similar to one that the IRS has determined to be a tax avoidance transaction and identified by IRS notice or other form of published guidance." The information about listed transactions includes summaries and full-text of relevant revenue rulings.
The law firm Pillsbury Madison LLP offers the IRS' AFR Revenue Ruling and the AFRs from January 1996 to present.
Applicable Federal Rates (TimeValue)
TimeValue Software offers AFRs from January 1996 to present.
Find various tools for converting currency including one that converts current exchange rates and one that provides historical data.
Employee Benefits Legal Resource Site
Calhoun Law Group, P.C. offers a site devoted to helping people find news and legal resources on employee benefits issues. The blog-like structure of the site, displays news and commentary on the home page. For legal documents and information sources, select the research menu on the left. You will also find articles, book summaries, charts and speech outlines. There are also discussion forums on several topics, including 401(k) plans, IRAs and Roth IRAs, health plans, cafeteria plans, and more.
Find audit guidelines and hotlinked references to current articles from trade, news and government sources. Also use this site to stay current with industry events, agency actions, and trends.
Federal Reserve Board Selected Interest Rates
The Federal Reserve Board offers Release H.15 on selected interest rates. It provides daily interest rates for U.S. Treasury and private money market and capital market instruments.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis offers historical U.S. economic and financial data, including daily interest rates, monetary and business indicators, exchange rates, balance of payments and select regional economic data.
Federation of Tax Administrators
This membership organization offers links to state tax forms, information about various state tax rates, and more.
After registering with freeERISA.com, search this database to find information pertaining to requests to terminate qualified retirement plans.
freeERISA.com offers several databases useful for those conducting research about group retirement or welfare benefit plans. Some databases require a paid subscription, but many are free. The free databases offer financial reports (form 5500) of the qualified retirement plans of U.S. employers, company applications to terminate retirement plans (form 5310), information about companies with executive deferred compensation plans, information about non-profit organizations, SEC filings on employee benefits and compensation, collective bargaining agreements, and more. Two other free databases help you find employer identification numbers (EINs). Access requires free registration.
Full Universal Currency Converter, The
This Xenon Labs utility converts 180 different currencies from over 250 geographic locations. According to Tourbus, September 12, 2000, Xenon's sources are "live, real-time rate feeds containing data from foreign exchange markets around the world."
Gilbert & Tobin is an Australian corporate, technology and communications law firm. It provides full-text copies of articles covering timely issues in competition law, business law, intellectual property, tax law, and more. From the home page, select the Publications tab.
Internal Revenue Code (Cornell LII)
Access the Internal Revenue Code via an interface provided by Cornell's Legal Information Institute.
Published annually by the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS Data Book contains statistical tables and organizational information covering fiscal year 2004 (1 October 2003 through 30 September 2004). The report provides data on collections, enforcement, assisting taxpayers, and management, as well as lists and a chart about the structure and administration of the IRS. Tables are grouped by category: returns filed, tax collections and refunds (Tables 1-9); examination coverage (Tables 10-15); delinquency and enforcement activity (Table 16); appeals (Table 17); criminal investigation (Table 18); employee plan and tax-exempt organization information (Tables 19-22); taxpayer assistance (Tables 23-24); information reporting (Table 25); taxpayer contact information (Table 26); penalties (Table 27); Chief Counsel activities (Tables 28-29); and administrative costs and personnel summaries (Tables 30-33). You may download the entire publication or any of the tables individually.
Provides an overview on tax law, inlcuding links to statutes, regulations, dockets, news and blogs on the topic.
Rafael Gely, Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, maintains this site, which provides information of interest to law school tax professors in their scholarship and teaching. It offers several resources including, a directory of labor law professors, a list of law school labor and employment law certificate programs and graduate degree programs in labor relations and human resource management, a list of casebooks and other materials for labor law courses, links to sources of federal, state, and foreign labor and employment laws, and more. It also provides an RSS and Atom feed.
In Gely's own words, the site "is not a collection of ruminations about the latest labor and employment policy issue in the news or the latest labor case caselaw in the area." Nonetheless, I found ample commentary on labor relations and human resources issues.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation provides information about almost 3,000 terminated pension plans. Browse the list, or search by plan or sponsor name. Information provided includes name of plan, name of the plan sponsor, termination date, date of trusteeship, number of participants, and case number.
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Case Inventory Log - Terminations
After registering with freeERISA.com, generate a list of companies with defined benefit pension plans that they have elected to terminate. The data is available from July 1999.
The site offers summaries of FASB statements.
This commercial site helps online merchants understand and calculate sales tax for more than 7,000 jurisdictions. It also provides some helpful free information. For example, find a chart of state sales tax rates with links to the appropriate state Web page, an online sales tax calculator that provides partial information for free, a list of value added taxes for countries around the world, and more.
Discover a company's benefit plan service providers. Find ERISA counsel, medical providers, trustees, investment managers, accountants, and more. The database contains data from Schedule C, which employers must file "for plans with 100 or more participants, [provided] the plan paid $5,000 or more to any service provider."
Continuing professional education provider SmartPros Ltd. offers a mix of free and commercial resources for accounting professionals. Find news and commentary (also available for free by email) on a variety of accounting issues, including new tax law, financial fraud, the economy and corporate accountability. Other resources include continuing education materials (fee-based), a glossary of accounting terms, full-length articles with a free searchable archive, job bank and more.
State Government Tax Collections
The U.S. Census Bureau offers a statistical report, which summarizes taxes collected by state in up to 25 tax categories. The tables present details on tax collections by type of tax imposed, and collected, by state governments. Years covered include 1992 to 2004. Select a year to start. You may compare states by downloading the "summary table spreadsheet." There is also a table ("ranking table") that ranks states by the amount of taxes collected. It's available in HTML format.
Find commentary as well as references to articles published in Tax Analysts' publications.
Tax lawyer, Robert L. Sommers, offers this tax information resource. The site primarily offers commentary and lecture outlines.
Tax Resources (formerly, TaxSites)
Seeking federal, state, foreign or international tax law or materials? Look no further!
Maintained by Alan G. Kalman, this site is a good starting point for tax-related research. Kalman provides an extensive list of resources, covering mostly the United States and the United Kingdom. Links to materials requiring assisted technologies, such as the Acrobat reader, are clearly indicated.
Search (by keyword) or browse (by number) Internal Revenue Rulings from 1954 to present.
TimeValue Software offers a Web site that assists businesses in calculating the amount of tax penalties owed.
Researchers must register to use this site.
Part of Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, TracIRS offers civil and criminal audit and enforcement statistics.
National Tax Services, Inc. offers an alternate site for downloading tax forms and retrieving Internal Revenue Bulletins (IRB) and news releases. The site also provides links and contact information for filing state tax forms, many of the legislative documents created during the passage of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, commentary, a directory of tax professionals, and more. Its coverage of IRBs and tax forms extends beyond that of the official IRS site.
The New York Times offers a guide to doing your taxes. The guide also covers proposed tax cuts and other legislative news.
