Accounting and Auditing Research and Databases: Practitioner's Desk Reference

Judicial Sources

Consider judicial decisions as law interpreting the meaning of the Code or Treasury Regulation in a particular case. Judicial law is created by consistently treating similar cases in the same fashion under the applicable statute and regulations. Tax publishers RIA and CCH provide useful court reporters that include all federal court decisions concerning taxation, except for those from the Tax Court. Thus, included in the court reporters are tax cases from the Supreme Court, courts of appeals, U.S. district courts, and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Use either the RIA court reporter called American Federal Tax Reports (AFTR, AFTR2d, AFTR3d) or the CCH product entitled United States Tax Cases (USTC). AFTR and USTC are found in the publisher's tax research database: Checkpoint or IntelliConnect. Accountants usually cite non–Tax Court cases using the unofficial sources of either AFTR or USTC. An example of the template for finding a case by citation is provided in Exhibit 5-12.

Exhibit 5-12 Checkpoint's Find a Case by Citation

Examine prior judicial decisions to determine the meaning of a given phrase in the Code. To conduct the research on case law effectively, the tax researcher needs both a working knowledge of judicial concepts and the hierarchy of the various federal courts. Knowledge of the judicial system is necessary to appraise the authoritative weight ...