Useful websites and Internet assignments.

Editor's note: For more information about this column, please contact Dr. Schmidt at [e-mail].

The web is teeming with tax information, including a variety of resources useful to educators when researching tax issues and preparing for and conducting class. Assigning Internet research problems is an excellent way to expose students to different types of web-based tax information and hone their research skills. This column discusses numerous websites (arranged by category) that tax educators may find beneficial to their teaching and research activities and suggestions for Internet research assignments.

Tax Directories

Tax and Accounting Sites Directory (www.taxsites.com), originally developed by the author, is a comprehensive index of web-based tax and accounting resources. The site contains more than 2,000 links to other websites, arranged in a hierarchy of topical categories and subcategories. The directory includes several categories useful to educators and students, such as tax topics, Federal tax law, state and local tax, international tax, tax forms and academia. Links are arranged by subcategory within each category; for example, the classifications within the Federal tax law category are tax legislation, recent tax acts, Internal Revenue Code, regulations and rulings, IRS administrative materials, court decisions, tax topics and rates and tables. The site is easy to navigate and includes a Google[TM]-powered search engine.

Will Yancey's Home Page (www. willyancey.com) is especially useful for locating state and local tax resources. This site has pages dedicated to local sales, use and transaction taxes; state sales, use and excise taxes; property tax; and unclaimed property and contains several pages on sampling for tax audits. Alan Kalman's Tax Resources on the Web (www:taxtopics.net) lists more than 180 tax topics with links generally to IRS publications, applicable tax forms and secondary authorities.

Directories are valuable resources for tax educators as they prepare for and conduct class and design Internet research projects. When preparing for class, well-organized links to a wealth of tax information are at an instructor's fingertips. When conducting class in a computer lab or multimedia classroom, educators can use a directory to locate and display tax resources quickly. For example, in response to a student question an instructor wants to demonstrate the correct reporting of an item on a return. The instructor can use a directory to locate the appropriate Federal or state tax form within seconds and display it to the class.

Educators can also make good use of tax directories when designing Internet research assignments. One useful exercise is a "scavenger hunt"--the educator directs the students to use a directory to find a host of web-based tax resources, such as Federal or state tax forms, court cases, regulations, committee reports, IRS publications, tax treaty provisions, state and local tax rates, etc. This type of exercise exposes students to the many types of web tax resources and teaches them how to use a human-compiled subject directory (as opposed to a search engine) to locate them.

Federal Tax Research

One of the objectives of the AICPA's Model Tax Curriculum (MTC) (see www.aicpa.org/members/ div/career/edu/introduc.htm) is to enable students to conduct basic tax research and tax planning. The MTC also stresses the importance of developing communication skills. In addition, the AICPA's new computer based CPA examination (see www. cpa-exam.org) has a research component in which candidates must demonstrate an ability to locate and extract relevant information from available resource materials. The new CPA examination also tests candidates' ability to express information effectively in writing. Both the MTC and the tax section of the new CPA examination emphasize critical thinking and problem solving. (For a discussion, see Dennis-Escoffier, et al., Tax Education, "Preparing Students for the New CPA Examination," TTA, February 2003, p. 108.)

An excellent way to enhance students' research, problem-solving and communication skills is to assign a tax research or planning project in which they must use web-based databases to conduct research. The students would communicate their research results either in writing (e.g., legal memorandum, protest letter, client letter, case analysis) or in an oral presentation.

Subscription services: Many schools subscribe to commercial web-based tax services, such as those provided by BNA (www.bnatax.com), CCH (tax.cchgroup. com), Kleinrock (www.kleinrock.com), LexisNexis (www.lexis.com), RIA (www.riahome.com), Tax Analysts (www.taxanalysts.com) and Westlaw (www.westlaw.com). Most of these publishers have special academic pricing arrangements. For each available subscription service, students should learn about the various databases the service supports and how to navigate the service using basic and advanced keyword searching, citation searching, indexes and tables of contents.

Free services: Tax educators who do not have access to a subscription service or who wish to expose their students to publicly available databases have several options. Current legislative materials (e.g., bills, public laws, committee reports, Congressional records) are available on the Thomas (thomas.loc.gov) and GPO Access (www.gpoaccess.gov) sites. An informative Internet assignment is to have students explore these two sites and describe the type of tax-related information available and how to obtain relevant documents.

Students can learn about the role of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) in the tax legislative process at the JCT site (www.house.gov/jct) and view many JCT publications there. A good place to locate current tax regulations is at the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations site (www.access. gpo.gov/ecfr). Legalbitstream (www. legalbitstream.com) is a relatively new website that contains searchable databases of IRS administrative materials (e.g., revenue rulings, revenue procedures, letter rulings and general counsel and technical advice memoranda) and recent tax-related court opinions (at the trial and appellate levels). The Find-Law (www.findlaw.com) and U.S. Courts (www.uscourts.gov) websites are also good resources for court decisions.

Communicating research results: Students should also learn how to communicate effectively the results of a tax research project. One of the best websites for this is Writing Skills for the Tax Professional (www.gsu.edu/~accerl), developed by faculty in the Georgia State University Master of Taxation program. This site focuses first on problem areas related to wordiness, inappropriate punctuation and overuse of the passive voice. The first section concludes with a comprehensive list of links to other Internet resources geared to improving writing skills. The site next provides lessons and examples in preparing tax-related written communications, such as research memos, client letters and briefs. This section also includes tips on how to write manuscripts for publication in professional tax journals.

State, Local and International Tax

Tax instructors teaching a state or international tax course or who want to expose their students to tax regimes other than the Federal income tax system have a variety of web-based resources available. A good starting point is one of the tax directories discussed earlier. For example, the Tax and Accounting Sites Directory has separate pages dedicated to State and Local Tax (www.taxsites.com/state.html) and International Tax (www.taxsites.com/ international.html). Among other items, the state and local page provides extensive links to each state's taxing agency(ies), legal information, tax organizations and government sites. The international page contains links to tax resources for more than 80 countries. The Federation of Tax Administrators (www.taxadmin.org) also maintains a useful site on state taxation that contains information on comparative tax rates and burdens and links to state tax agencies and tax forms.

A worthwhile Internet assignment is to have students compare tax rates or structures across boundaries. For example, students would have to search the web to determine how different countries tax capital gains or how states assess sales and use taxes. Or, students can dig into a state tax agency's website to discover the various resources available there, such as tax forms, statutes, tax regulations, administrative rulings and information about income, sales, property, withholding and estate taxes.

Tax educators and students who participate in volunteer income tax assistance programs often have to prepare nonresident alien returns (Form 1040NR) for international students. A very useful web resource in this area is Gary Carter's Foreign National Tax Guide (www. thetaxguy.com/nrtaxguide.htm). IRS Pub. 901, U.S. Tax Treaties (www.irs.gov/ pub/irs-pdf/p901.pdf), which includes a summary of tax treaty provisions for visiting students and scholars, is also helpful.

INS Website

The IRS Website (www.irs.gov) contains a large amount of tax information on a wide variety of topics. The challenge for tax educators is to design exercises that allow students to take full advantage of the site's resources. A review of popular tax textbooks indicates that many end-of-chapter Internet research problems direct students to find specific documents or information on the IRS site. These are useful and informative exercises, but require knowledge of how to search the site. A valuable Internet assignment is to have students explore the search methods available on the IRS site, including the Site Map (www.irs.gov/sitemap), which is a type of subject directory, and the left-side menu, which includes "contents" and "resources?' Students should learn how to drill down through these indexes to find relevant information.

In addition, students should learn how to use the IP, S search engine. Each page of the IP,,S site has two search query input boxes on the left side of the page, one for general searches and the other for forms and publications. A "Search Help" link appears below the boxes, which takes users to a topics page that describes how to conduct basic and advanced searches. A useful Internet assignment is to have students describe the basic and advanced search features of the IRS search engine and conduct searches using some of the features.

Tax Policy and Reform

Tax policy issues and tax reform proposals are excellent topics for classroom discussions, Internet assignments, term papers or oral presentations. Students can discover a considerable amount of information about these topics on the web; for example, they can locate a tax policy or reform organization and describe and critique its platforms. The Tax Policy and Reform Groups page (www.taxsites.com/policy. html) contains a comprehensive list of such groups. Tax Analysts provides several resources on tax policy and reform, including the Tax History Project (tax history.tax.org), Tax Policy Readings (www.taxanalysts.com/www/ website.nsf/web/TaxPolicyReadings), Basic World Tax Code (www. taxanalysts.com/www/website.nsf/ web/BasicWorldTaxCode) and Economic Perspective (www.taxanalysts. com/www/website.nsf/web/ EconomicPerspective).

In 2001, the AICPA Tax Division issued a Tax Policy Concept Statement, entitled Guiding Principles of Good Tax Policy: A Framework for Evaluating Tax Proposals (http://ftp.aicpa.org/public/ download/members/div/tax/ 3-01.pdf). Annette Nellen (this column's editor) maintains a page called Tax Reform Information (www.cob. sjsu.edu/nellen_a/txrefupd.html), which summarizes tax reform events and provides links to other similar resources.

Teaching and Research Resources

The American Taxation Association (ATA) website (www.atasection.org) has several useful educator resources. From a teaching perspective, the top resource is the Course Syllabi Exchange (www.atasection.org/syllabus/ atasyllabi.htm), which contains links to hundreds of undergraduate and graduate tax course syllabi, arranged by course type and updated annually. The ATA website also features pages with links to teaching and research resources.

Another useful web page is Tax and Accounting Academia (www.taxsites. com/academia.html), which contains links to American Accounting Association resources, AICPA resources, ATA resources, teaching, research, associations, textbooks, conferences, journals, programs and certification.

Most of the major textbook publishers maintain websites that support their products. These sites generally have resources for both students and instructors. The educator resources may include such things as solution manuals, instructor manuals, PowerPoint[TM] presentations, test banks, transparencies, case studies, practice sets and tax law updates.

Conclusion

Tax educators have available to them hundreds of web-based tax resources that may be useful to their teaching and research activities. The web also serves as an excellent medium for student research projects. The websites and Internet assignments discussed in this column should be of benefit to tax educators as they research tax issues, prepare for and conduct class and design Internet research problems.

Annette Nellen, CPA, Esq.

Professor, Department of Accounting Finance

San Jose State University

San Jose, CA

Dennis Schmidt, Ph.D., CPA

Professor of Accounting

University of Northern Iowa 

Cedar Falls, IA