Selecting a Web-based tax research service is not a simple task. Commercial publishers offer a variety of premium and economy plans that can be bundled and priced in many ways. The variations make the selection process especially difficult. Although the basic pricing and services of the products are similar, it’s the extras—such as level of service, degree of customization and ease of access—that differentiate them.
This article is designed to help tax professionals wade through the product details to find the service that best suits their needs and budget (see Exhibits 1 and 2).
GO FOR THE WEB
The two obvious advantages of a Web-based service over a paper-based or noncommercial Internet resource are the ability to easily toggle between primary and secondary sources through hypertext links and to use keywords to simultaneously search sources.
For practitioners who prefer more traditional research methods, most Web-based products also permit searches by citation, table of contents or topical index. A Web-based service also provides daily updates of primary and secondary sources and enables access to the data from any computer with an Internet connection. In addition, the user no longer needs to continuously update a large paper library.
The tax research services listed in this article include Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), Commerce Clearing House (CCH), Research Institute of America (RIA), LexisNexis, Tax Analysts and Kleinrock. All provide access to primary tax law sources (Internal Revenue Code, Treasury regulations, rulings and cases).
One key characteristic that differentiates these services is how they package tax law and analyses—either as an annotated or a topical service. Although the distinction between the two methods was important in a paper environment, now, with the advent of keyword searches, it’s less significant. Several research providers (CCH, RIA and Kleinrock) include annotated services in which editorial explanations and analyses are arranged chronologically by IRC section number. All providers offer services that arrange editorial materials by topic.
