When Congress passes a bill into law these laws cannot possibly cover every situation that may
arise. The job of a CPA is to examine the committees’ comments during which these laws were
passed to find the truth for instance they were speaking and translate this into practice. With the
CPA or tax advisor must be able to explain why and how they came to these conclusions. What may
help them is to look back at the time it was past to receive its true meaning to try to find out
indeed why it was passed in the first place. The research on those situations is what we are looking
at in this discussion. Such as the new Revenue recognition that was passed ASC 606.
Answer Connect is a comprehensive commercial tax service built by Walters Kluwer (Sawyers,
2021). This new evolution helps cut down on the need for multiple searches and is designed to be
intuitive (Sawyers, 2021). Access to the entire CCH library is available from one screen and then can
be used to narrow the search by using the filter option (Answer Connect, 2023). There are other
sites like this Smith.ai Virtual is one of its competitors. These companies also have researchers that
you can call to find out and answer your questions also. G2 Deals, Cloud Task, and Sure Call Experts
are more sites that can be used in the same manner. How often should we reference the
committee reports to see what was discussed on the congressional floor?
If there is any change with the code or update it should be checked but also, in any case where
there could be any doubt by the examiner (Answer Connect, 2023).
I used this with the situation of a disabled person that was claimed by someone else and was trying
to better themselves by going back to school to see if they could claim the tax credit for that
individual. This led me to the able accounts for the disabled persons that in fact can better
themselves.
There are several different areas that you can look to find an answer for a client when the IRC does
not fully answer the client’s question or situation. Two such sources that come immediately to
mind are the Internal Revenue Bulletins (IRB) and Tax court cases. The IRBs are used to announce
rulings and procedures of the IRS. The rulings that the bulletins publish are from Treasury
Decisions, Executive Orders, Tax Conventions, Legislation, and court decisions.
If I could not find the answers in the IRBs, I would go on to look up tax court cases. I would search
for cases where the taxpayer won and where the taxpayer lost to determine what would help my
client and what my client should avoid doing. It is possible that court cases can contradict each
other. In this situation I would look at where the cases were decisioned vs where my client resides,
and I would look at when the decisions were made. I believe I would follow the last court decision
if that decision was not in the process of being appealed.
Committee reports from the congressional floor are also a good research source. While committee
reports may be published by the IRBs, they do not always have the full report, or the full
interpretation/intent included.
References
Answer Connect. (2023). Internal Revenue Code 360. Retrieved from answerconnect.cch.com:
https://answerconnect.cch.com/app/acr/home/federal
Sawyers, R. G. (2021). Federal Tax Research. Retrieved from McGraw Hill.com:
https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/reader/books/9780357366448/pageid/1
