Skip to Main Content

Tax Research

Use this guide as an introduction to researching federal tax questions, for tax policy research and for finding IRS documents and other tax-related materials.

Suggested Research Strategy

1.  To start  - getting background and/or topic selection.  Use one or more of the following:  

   a. -Westlaw  > Topics > Tax > Secondary (Law Reviews and Treatises)

  •    Search Bittker & Lokken: Federal Taxation of Income, separately for basic introduction to topic
  •    Make sure to use Citing References tab to identify newer articles when viewing an older useful article found in Westlaw

   b. Lexis Tax (see product selector in upper left)

   c.  National News (New York Times, Wall Street Journal) - if topic is of popular interest

   d.  Think Tanks/Blogs/Web sites - see box below (these also good for topic finding and honing). 

   e.  To get grounding in operation of tax law - Treatises (on Westlaw or Checkpoint), BNA Portfolios.  See Tax Databases box, below.

2. Follow up references 

3. IRC section on Checkpoint ;  annotated code on Westlaw, Lexis 

4. Check current developments - Bloomberg Daily Tax Report, blogs, Tax notes, think tanks (links below)

5. ASK a Reference Librarian!!  See Contact Us box on left

Tax specific databases

Look for ** in descriptions below for resources that are useful for topic selection.

Access restricted - Hofstra Law users only.  You will be asked to log in using either your name and 700 number or network username and password  in order to access databases in this list.  Use your Lexis or Westlaw username and password.

Tax specific databases/links:

Other legal databases:

Tax Policy Blogs, Think Tanks, Web resources

Listed in order of likely usefulness.