Using the AICPA Journals and the CCH Tax Service 2009

Before getting into the guidance for using the tax service, lets cover how to get to the AICPA Journals. AICPA.org

Note the following Journal of Accountancy The Tax Adviser Weekly News Updates Read current and archived editions

Assume you are writing about charitable contributions. Look in the Subject Index of The Tax Adviser and you will find that the journal has 11 articles in 2008 about some aspect of charitable contributions. (You can also check index for past years.)

Here is how to log into the CCH Tax Service. mesrc/bin/login.asp

These are major divisions

Lets begin using the CCH service by finding some journal articles in Taxes-The Tax Magazine by CCH

Journal table of contents Lets look at the last article.

Now lets look at some practice tools. Our journey will lead us to some great information about how to choose a business entity, and of course many other helpful topics.

Assume we want to read the actual legal documents – Internal Revenue Code, Regulations, Rulings Court cases. See next slide.

The graphic shows how you drill down to deeper levels of detail to get to a Code Section, etc.

You can identify a search term, (such as “capital gains”) check the box next to the part of the tax database you want to search (tax cases, etc.) enter your search term, possibly give dates such as “after January 2, 2009,” etc, then get a list of documents containing those terms.

The remaining screens are for the benefit of Tax Research Class Members.

There will be a question on the 2009 final exam about a net operating loss carryback. Goal, be able to answer a straightforward question about a local corporation that has a major operating loss in 2009, and operated at break-even in 2007 and 2008.

Related goal. Understand the importance of the Code Section, Committee Report, Regulations (not yet updated), and IRS documents such as Revenue Procedure Also, tax newsletters. (We don’t yet have court cases.)

You will be responsible for printing your own copies of the documents shown on the next few pages. You can bring them and use them on the test. At a minimum, you should print Section 172.

The quantity of information mentioned on the following slides may suggest that you will have a very long test question. Not So. It will be a basic question, and will not require a long answer. We often read a lot to be able to answer a short question.

Corporations and other taxpayers have experienced staggering losses. This new provision of the law will be important for you to know about beyond the current year.

The following screen shows the path to the CCH news item about the recently passed amendments to the net operating loss provisions.

The following slide shows the path to the Standard Federal Tax Reporter

The following slide shows the path in the Standard Federal Tax Reporter to Code section 172. It also shows the legislative history for Section 172

The following slide shows the path to current developments including Revenue Procedure , containing guidance on how to take advantage of the new law.

This PowerPoint file gives you some guidance on starting and using the AICPA Journals and the CCH Tax Service. You will learn by doing. Let me know if you find it helpful, of if you find something that needs to be Improved. Howard Godfrey