The single source of authoritative nongovernmental U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (US GAAP). The Codification is effective for interim and annual periods ending after September 15, 2009.
Title 26 of the U.S. Code contains nearly all of the federal tax laws. This title is commonly referred to as the "Internal Revenue Code" (IRC) or sometimes simply as "The Code."
The current version is the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended. There have been three major enactments of the IRC: The 1939 Code, the 1954 Code, and the 1986 Code. Prior to the 1939 Code, federal tax laws were individual Revenue Acts.
Structure. The IRC is organized into subtitles, chapters, subchapters, and parts, each of which contains related provisions on a particular topic. Related sections are often cross-referenced to each other. Therefore, it is often useful to read the table of contents to the IRC or to a subchapter in order to get an overview of the structure of a topic.
Subtitles:
| A | Income Taxes |
| B | Estate & Gift Taxes |
| C | Employment Taxes |
| D | Misc. Excise Taxes |
| E | Alcohol & Tobacco Excise Taxes |
| F | Procedure & Administration |
| G | The Joint Committee on Taxation |
| H | Financing of Presidential Campaigns |
| I | Trust Fund Code |
| J | Coal Industry Health Benefits |
| K | Group Health Plan Benefits |
Commonly-Researched Subchapters of Subtitle A (Income Taxes):
| A | Determination of Tax Liability (sections 1 - 59B) |
| B | Computation of Taxable Income (sections 61 - 291) |
| C | Corporate Distributions and Adjustments (Corporate Tax) (sections 301 - 385) |
| J | Income Tax on Estates and Trusts (sections 641 - 692) |
| K | Partners and Partnerships (Partnership Tax) (sections 701 - 777) |
| S | "S Corporations" (sections 1361 -1379) |
Definitions. Generally, each group of related sections will have a section of definitions. In addition, section 7701 contains over 50 definitions of terms that are used throughout the IRC.
The IRS is a bureau of the Treasury Department. It administers, enforces, and supervises the execution and application of the internal revenue laws and collects taxes through administrative procedures. The IRS publishes a wide variety of tax statistics.
The Treasury Department develops and impements tax policies and programs; provides the official estimates of all governments receipts for the President's budget, fiscal policy decisions, and Treasury cash management decisions; establishes policy criteria reflected in regulations and rulings, and guides preparation of them with the Internal Revenue Service; and provides economic and legal policy analysis for domestic and international tax policy decisions. The Office of Tax Policy includes reports, tax analysis, and annual reports to Congress on the Administration's revenue proposals ("Greenbook").
The Council of Economic Advisers, an agency within the Executive Office of the President, is charged with providing the President objective economic advice on the formulation of both domestic and international economic policy. The Council bases its recommendations and analysis on economic research and empirical evidence.
The National Economic Council (NEC) was established in 1993 to advise the President on U.S. and global economic policy.
The Committee on Ways & Means is the chief tax-writing committee in the House of Representatives.
The Senate Committee on Finance is the Senate committee concerned with taxation and other revenue measures.
The Joint Committee on Taxation is a non-partisan committee of the United States Congress. The staff of the Joint Committee assists Congressional tax-writing committees with the development and analysis of legislative proposals, prepares official revenue estimates of all tax legislation considered by Congress, drafts legislative histories for tax-related bills, and investigates various aspects of the federal tax system. Their website contains numerous publications, including revenue-related analyses of the President's budget proposals, macroeconomic analyses of tax bills, and the annual "Bluebook," an explanation of each year's new tax legislation.
The charge of the CBO is to produce a cost benefit analysis of legislation introduced in Congress. This site includes background papers, economic analyses, cost benefit reports, and other analytical studies prepared by the CBO. The publications cover an extensive range of subject areas, including the environment, labor, homeland security, federal spending, and much more.
All unclassified reports produced by the GAO are available to the public. The entire range of government activities are reviewed by the GAO and these reports provide factual and thorough anaylsis of government projects. Older GAO reports are available onFDSys (1989- ) and Westlaw (GAO-RPTS, coverage begins in 1994).
With tab at the top of the page, you can access GAO Reports which contains reports ("blue books") on audits, surveys, investigations, and evaluations of federal programs conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Every C-SPAN program since 1987 is available and searchable in this extensive archive of the C-SPAN network, providing access to hours of policy debates and transcripts.
Includes economic research and downloadable data related to selected Federal Reserve Board statistical releases
There are five federal courts that have jurisdiction over disputes between taxpayers and the Government.
All tax cases are first tried in one of three lower level trial courts: the U.S. Tax Court, U.S. District Court, or U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Tax cases tried in all of these courts are later appealed to the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Although it is a national court, the U.S. Tax Court hears cases in different locations around the country, and appeals of Tax Court cases are heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Circuit in which the taxpayer resides. Appeals of cases from the U.S. District Courts are heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Circuit in which they sit. Appeals from cases decided by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims are heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
As with all federal cases, the court of last resort is the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Tax Court is a specialized court that hears only federal tax cases at the trial level. Before 1943, the U.S. Tax Court was called the Board of Tax Appeals (BTA).
Taxpayers appearing before the Tax Court are not required to pay the disputed tax amount before the case is heard (i.e., "deficiency procedure"). However, if unsuccessful, the taxpayer will owe interest on the tax liability in dispute. Jury trials are not offered.
The Tax Court issues three types of decisions: (2) summary decisions, (2) regular decisions, and (3) memorandum decisions.
Summary decisions are issued in "small" cases, which is an expedited procedure for individual taxpayers with less than $50,000 in tax liability. Summary decisions are not appealable, and thus are not considered precedent. There is no official or unofficial reporter for summary decisions.
Freely available resource for opinions and other documents from federal tax-related court cases.
Summary Opinions (2001 -), U.S. Tax Court Reports (1995 -), and Memorandum Opinions (1995 -).
Public policy research and analysis is often the province of non-profit research organizations known as think tanks.
Tax Policy Think Tanks:
Urban Institute and Brookings Institution
ATPI supports nonpartisan scholarly research, analysis and discussion of U.S. federal, state and local, and international tax policy issues
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization that conducts analyses of tax and economic proposals and provides data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems
Since 1937, research and analysis have informed tax policy in the U.S. and internationally.
Public Policy & Economic Policy Think Tanks:
