Free tax resources on the Internet: a selected bibliography.

• Author: Brown, William P.

The interne has become the go-to source of general information for many people. Used judiciously, it can also be a source of tax information for CPAs and other tax professionals. Many nongov-ernment websites provide free information as part of their marketing of the products and services they offer for sale. This does not mean the free information is unreliable, but it does raise the possibility that it is incomplete, particularly when it comes to the more detailed complexities of individual tax issues.

This column describes web resources that provide significant free information about federal taxes. As indicated in the title, this is a subjective selection of sites that the author has found useful.

Caution: Please keep in mind that the internet is a dynamic environment, and no guarantees are made about the completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of information found on any of these websites.

U.S. Tax Court

ustaxcourtgov: The U.S. Tax Court posts its opinions on the day they are issued and saves them in an archive. All Tax Court regular and memorandum decisions are available from Sept. 25, 1995, to the present. Summary opinions are available from Jan. 10, 2001, to the present. These opinions are searchable by date, case (petitioner) name, judge, and opinion type. Full-text search of the opinions is also available. Code section numbers are useful keywords in a full-text search. Tax Court opinions are downloadable as PDF files.

The Joint Committee on Taxation

jct.gov: Probably the most often accessed documents on the joint Committee on Taxation's site are the Bluebooks, which provide explanations of tax legislation enacted by each Congress. Generally, these documents are issued every two years, although major legislation (e.g., the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, P.L. 111-148) may get an explanatory publication of its own.

Other publications deal with budget estimates and descriptions of proposed legislation.

Most of the publications on this site are downloadable as PDFs.

Ryan Tax Gateway ryan.com/Tax-Gateway/Search-by-Topic: The Ryan Tax Gateway is part of the website of Ryan LLC, a global tax services firm based in Dallas. These pages provide links to each state's department of taxation, state legislature, court system, and other information that could be useful to a tax. practitioner. Also included are topic search, tax developments, and articles of interest.

Another section provides a list of topics, which currently include electronic commerce taxation, federal law on state and local tax, property tax, and several others.

The Federation of Tax Administrators maintains a similar website (taxadmin.org/fta/link/default.php) with links to all state websites plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Tax, Accounting and Payroll Sites Directory

taxsites.com: As this site's name suggests, it provides numerous links in three broad categories: Tax, Accounting, and Payroll/HR. Each subcategory leads to a list of links on that topic. For example, under Tax, the topic International Tax Websites leads to a list of government tax websites for over 80 countries. The other two categories, Accounting and Payroll/HR, are organized in a similar manner.

Tax Guide for Investors

fairmark.com: The two resources at this site are Tax Help and Fairmark Forum. In addition to...