This guide provides links to U.S. Government websites for researching the Internal Revenue Code, final, temporary and proposed Treasury Regulations, and related legislative and regulatory history. It also provides tips for using those websites. URLs and other information provided are current as of November 30, 2009.

I. INTERNAL REVENUE CODE

     A.  Current Code

The Office of Law Revision Counsel provides the U.S. Code online at http://uscode.house.gov/search/criteria.shtml. You can retrieve a particular provision of the Internal Revenue Code ("Code") by specifying Title 26 and the desired section. The site accommodates searches by word or phrase as well as proximity and other searches using Boolean connectors. It provides detailed instructions under "Boolean and proximity connectors". The basic wildcard character is *. Searches can be limited to a particular subdivision of the Code. For example, if you want to search for "increase" followed within five words by "basis", and to limit your search to Subchapter K, Partners and Partnerships, enter: increase w/5 basis. In the "Subchapter" field, enter K. This example produces 5 hits, whereas searching all of Title 26 would produce more than 30 hits. Currently the site displays the Code as of January 8, 2008. If, however, you search for a particular Code section alone (i.e., without search words) and the section was amended after the "as of" date, there will be a separate hit for the amendment. You can then retrieve the text of the amendment under the applicable Public Law number on http://www.thomas.gov/bss/d111/d111laws.html , using the Find feature of your web browser (under "Live search/Find on this page" or "Edit/Find"). The results page links to Text and PDF versions of the Public Law.

     B.  Legislative History

Amendments by Code Section; Prior Versions of Code. When the Law Revision Counsel site retrieves a Code section, it includes a list of amendments, giving Public Law citations as well as the changes themselves. Following that is a list of effective dates. A useful feature of this site is its ability to retrieve a Code section as of a particular year; http://uscode.house.gov/search/prevcode.shtml allows the user to research prior versions of the Code year-by-year as far back as January 2, 1991.

Congressional Committee Reports on Thomas and GPO Access Sites. Congressional Committee Reports can be retrieved on the Library of Congress' Thomas website by report number or by word or phrase. See http://thomas.loc.gov/cp111/cp111query.html. The first step in using this page is to select the applicable Congress, as indicated by the portion of the Public Law or Report number that precedes the dash. The following table provides Congress numbers dating to 1979.

The page has a drop-down menu accommodating a search either by word, phrase or report number. Another option is to include variants such as plurals (generally a good idea). You can then narrow your search to specific committees. The default selection is all committees. To escape from the default, uncheck the three "All" boxes above the three lists of committees. By limiting your search to the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, the Conference Committee, and the Joint Committee on Taxation, you can effectively narrow your search for a word or phrase without first knowing the specific committee that authored the report. To select both the Conference Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation, select one and then hold the Control key while selecting the other. The site treats a hyphenated word as two words. A useful feature of the search function is that the hit list categorizes hits into those that contain the exact phrase, those that contain the component words close to each other, and those that contain the component words somewhere in the document.

The hit list identifies names of the Acts retrieved and offers several links for drilling down into legislative history. These links lead to several other research choices. If the hit list contains more than one relevant committee report under the Act, it is typically most efficient to start with the latest so as to not miss (or have to reconstruct) changes made during the legislative process. The following recommendations assume that you are looking for not only the text of the legislation, but also an explanation. Select the House or Senate Committee Report number (from the first of three columns of links). In most cases this will take you to the Table of Contents for the desired report. Using the Find feature of your browser, you can then search for a word or term in the Table of Contents or click on "Full Display" in the top left corner and search the full text of the Committee Report. We find it more efficient, however, to click on the PDF link under the "Full Display" box near the top of the page and continue to the GPO Access site. There you can conduct a search by word or phrase using the Find feature of Adobe Reader. This has several advantages over searching the HTML page.

For example, in Adobe Reader 9, by selecting "Open Full Reader Search" (using the down arrow to the right of "Find"), you can view a search window that lists in context all instances of your search word or phrase. Scanning this list and selecting seemingly relevant occurrences can save much time. Using "Advanced Search Options" (at the bottom of the search window) also allows a choice between searching for an exact phrase or for any of its component words. It also allows "stemming", a feature that retrieves words containing the root word. For example, a search for "contribut" retrieves contributions, contributed, contributing, and other variations. Formatting in the PDF version also reveals more clearly the organization of the report. This is particularly true for explanatory sections (usually called "Summary and Background" or "Explanatory Statement"). Finally, the PDF version includes page numbers from the official print. These help navigate between the Table of Contents and the text and are necessary if you plan to cite explanatory sections of the report.

The Readable Code and Regs: Partnerships includes as Appendix III the URLs for Committee Reports and Explanations cited in our Tables of Post-1999 Legislative History that follow Code sections amended after 1999.

Another way to access Committee Reports if you have the Public Law number is to look up the Public Law at http://thomas.loc.gov . Under "Find More Legislation" select "Public Laws", then the applicable Congress, and then the applicable range of Public Law numbers. The result list includes links to the text of legislation and to relevant Committee Reports.

     C.   Blue Books (Joint Committee on Taxation General Explanations)

What is the Blue Book? After each Congress ends, the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation publishes a General Explanation of tax legislation enacted by that Congress, also called a "blue book." Because the blue book is a staff explanation and is written after enactment of the legislation in question, courts have denied it the technical status of legislative history while still affording it "respect". Although this distinction is important in tax controversies, it is less so where the practitioner's goal is to gain or enhance a working understanding of recent tax legislation. In this respect the blue book has several advantages over "real" legislative history such as reports of the House Ways and Means Committee or Senate Finance Committee. The blue book explains the final version of tax legislation and is written with the benefit of prior analysis in the relevant Committee Reports and Congressional debate. It sometimes addresses questions that have arisen since those sources were published. Additionally, since the blue book reports on legislation over the entire two-year life of a Congress, it reflects cumulative changes made during that time. This may obviate, for example, the need to retrieve one committee report explaining the base legislation and another explaining a technical correction, assuming both measures were enacted by the same Congress.

Online Access to Blue Books. The following official web pages link to blue books:

March 2009 Blue Book: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/joint/hjoint01cp111.html
January 2007 Blue Book: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/joint/hjoint01cp110.html
Pre-2007 Blue Books: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Documents.asp?section=8

II. TREASURY REGULATIONS

     A.  Current Final and Temporary Treasury Regulations

The GPO Access site contains final and temporary Treasury Regulations as of April 1, 2009, at http://www.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/cfrassemble.cgi?title=200926 . This page allows a full text search by word or phrase. It also accommodates browsing by section numbers. You can retrieve individual sections of the regulations by selecting the applicable range of section numbers under the column headed "Browse Parts". The site then gives you a choice between TXT and PDF versions. Due to the clearer formatting and better search options (see I.B. above, fourth paragraph) we prefer the PDF version.

When using the "Search Terms" feature of the above page to retrieve an exact phrase, put the phrase in quotes. You can also limit your search to a subset of regulations that corresponds to a volume of the Code of Federal Regulations. For example, to limit your search to regulations under Subchapter K, Partners and Partnerships, uncheck "Title 26 Internal Revenue" in the first column and check Volume 8 under the "Search Volume" column. This selection limits your search to the regulations under Code Sections 641-850.

     B.   History of Final and Temporary Treasury Regulations

The April 1, 2008 version of final Treasury Regulations on the GPO Access website (available at http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_08/26cfr1h_08.html) cites Treasury Decisions (TDs) amending that section. An example can be found following Sec. 1.704-1(e)(4)(ii) (i.e., at the end of Sec. 1.704-1). Besides the text of the amendment, TDs contain a preamble that typically includes an explanation of the regulation, a brief history of prior proposed versions, any legislative changes prompting the regulation, and summaries of certain public comments. TDs are published in the Federal Register. Those published after 1994 can be retrieved at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/advanced.html . You can retrieve a TD by checking the year of publication (remember to uncheck 2009 unless that is the year of publication) and using the TD number in quotes, e.g., "TD 9292". Usually the resulting hit list will be short. If it is still too long, you can further narrow your search by completing the date field. The hit list offers a choice between HTML and PDF versions. These can be further searched using either the Find feature of your web browser or the "Open Full Reader Search" feature of Adobe Reader (to the right of "Find"). For reasons discussed above, we prefer the PDF version.

Even without the citation, TDs can be retrieved from the above web page by using a search word or phrase. It helps a great deal, however, to know the year of amendment or at least a range of two or three years. For example, you might know that in 2005 or 2006, the Section 704 regulations were amended to provide rules for allocating foreign taxes paid or accrued. On the above website, check 2005 and 2006, uncheck 2009, and select "Final Rules and Regulations." The Federal Register covers regulations and other publications from most federal agencies, but you can limit your search to income tax regulations by entering in the search field (in quotes) "26 CFR part 1". A search for "26 CFR part 1" AND "1.704-1" AND "foreign taxes" yields four hits, the first of which contain the desired TD. Note that without the connector "AND", this search would have yielded over 180 hits. The bottom of the web page offers further instructions for searching, as does the link called "Search Tips".

A unique feature of the Readable Code and Regs series is the Table of Post-1999 Regulatory History (TRH), which follows the group of final and temporary Regulations under an applicable Code section. It lists final, temporary and proposed regulations under that Code section issued after 1999. Included in the TRH are the TD number (for final and temporary regulations) or Federal Register Document ID (for Proposed Regulations), the date of publication, effective date, affected sections, and the RP Change Reference. The RP Change Reference is a nine-digit number that in the case of a major change ties an entry in the TRH to the corresponding entry in the Summary of Post-1999 Major Regulatory Activity on the facing page (the "Summary"). In the case of outstanding post-1999 Proposed Regulations, the RP Change Reference also ties an entry in the Summary to the Proposed Regulation as it appears in the book. This navigation aid is especially useful where there are multiple sets of Proposed Regulations pending under the same Code section.

     C.  Proposed Regulations

Proposed Regulations are also published in the Federal Register, although not as part of a Treasury Decision. They are assigned a unique Federal Register Document ID (ID) such as fr18no05-14. This ID in quotes can be used as a search term on the GPO Access website (see II.B. above) to retrieve a Proposed Regulation, remembering to uncheck 2009 and check the year of publication. The hit list should yield only one or two hits, which can then be retrieved and searched in either HTML or PDF format. If the hit list is longer than desired, you can fill in the date field and repeat the search (the ID itself identifies the date of publication). Because of the relative ease of using the ID to retrieve a Proposed Regulation from the GPO Access website, the Readable Code and Regs cites the ID rather than volume and page numbers in the Federal Register. A cross-reference table in the book (Appendix IV), however, provides the latter information as well as the RP Change Reference for the Proposed Regulation in question.

If you do not have the ID, search words or phrases can be used instead, applying the techniques described in the second paragraph of II.B. above. In this case, select the year of publication and "Proposed Rules" in the search form.

Proposed Regulations issued after March 4, 2007, can also be researched at http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html . We recommend starting with "Advanced Search" to the right of the Search button. Then select "IRS" under "Agency". Under "Document Type", select "Proposed Rules". Under "Posted Date", select the desired range of dates. The search form provides other fields for narrowing your search. There is a key word search feature near the top of this page. Due to the size of the data base being searched, a search for a phrase should normally be in quotes. Documents can be retrieved in PDF or HTML format.

Proposed Regulations issued before March 5, 2007, can be retrieved from the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/content/0,,id=103728,00.html , where they are catalogued by month of publication.

     D.  IRS Priority Guidance Plan

IRS periodically issues a Priority Guidance Plan (PGP). This document announces the IRS' and Treasury's intention to issue regulations, Proposed Regulations, or other guidance on specific topics. Such information helps the practitioner anticipate future final and proposed regulations. The PGP often identifies Notices and other sources of interim guidance on topics that the IRS intends to cover in forthcoming regulations. As of this writing, the most recent PGP (November 24, 2009) can be found at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2009_-_2010_priority_guidance_plan.pdf . PGPs can also be retrieved from the home page of the IRS website by searching for "Priority Guidance Plan".

     E.  Other IRS Tax Guidance

The IRS website allows users to search and retrieve IRS Notices, Revenue Rulings, Revenue Procedures, and other administrative guidance, all under "Other Official Tax Guidance" at http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0,,id=98137,00.html . This page allows full text searches of PDF versions dating back to 1996 and HTML versions dating back to July 2003. If searching by citation put the citation in quotes, e.g., "Notice 2006-14". From the initial hit list, you can narrow your search using the "Advanced Search" page.