It is important, especially in a profession like ours that involves people’s money, that we have good verified sources of research. Of course there’s the grand daddy of all sources, the IRS itself. How many of you surf the IRS website frequently? Like the new format that came out last summer? Find it easier to use? I don’t know about you, but the search engine was never awesome to begin with and now it’s even worse and harder to use in my opinion.
Many companies have jumped into the breech in translating “IRSese” into plain language. Some of these are free access and some are paid access. I have tried many of them with varying degrees of success or failure. My requirements for a research resource are fairly simple.
1. It must be authenticated.
2. It must be broad scoped.
3. It must be user friendly.
4. It must have a super search engine.
So does that mean I only do research online? Nope, you can ask my co-workers, I’m always coming in with new books, magazines, newsletters, and other things with tax news in them.
First a few general tips to get access to the best research resources. Join a professional organization, NAEA, NATP, ASTPS, NSA and others are some of the bigger ones. Join the local chapter of your associations. Network with your peers. Join some of the peer networking sites like LinkedIn. I learn so much from the folks on that site, either from the folks in the discussions or from questions that have piqued my interest and make me dive into the research to find the answer. When you are networking whether you are at a function or online, make yourself available. Pass out your business cards.
In my office we have what we call “brain mashing” sessions. During the day if we run into a problem we will poke our heads in each others office do a “quick mash”, but we also have weekly sessions where we all get together before the office opens and run things around the room. Getting different perspectives and different takes on the question helps a lot and leads to…….more research! I do lots of email mashing with my network of friends as well so this will work for a single person operation of a group office.
Tomorrow we get into Research Methodology with links to some great “How To” guides.
Anything and everything taxes. I also write the Louisiana State book to go to our new Income Tax Course learners and the state-wide training for upper level Tax Professionals. I am an Instructor of all levels of tax related classes. I love to teach and write as well as taking the absolute best care of my clients all year round.
26 years in Law Enforcement (13 in the Air Force and 13 at the Bossier City PD), 20 years doing income taxes professionally.
My goals now are to spend many years being my 3 grandchildren’s MeeMaw, taking the absolute best care of my clients, and continually learning new things.
Specialties
Taxes! I specialize in military, states, small business, and rentals.
The postings made on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent HR Block’s positions, strategies or opinions.
3 comments on “Research Basics – Part 1 of a 6 Part Series On Research”
I do check the IRS site at times but most other places and persons out there i.e. other tax blogs and other sites NAEA or NATP or others take the information or news briefs and translate taxese into plain English
As a tax person that specializes in tax resolution work nationwide I receive about twenty tax related news briefs and updates and blog reports weekly so I have a wide variety of places to go to get my latest tax information including Tax Connections.
Keep up the good work
Would love to hear from other active tax resolution professionals as to where they do their research or get the new IRS news or tax related news and information (other than standard commercial services) like a CCH or similar type subscription service
The rest of this series will give you some more info. Just select Kathryn Morgan in the Authors category on the right of the blog page to see all six Research posts. I also would love to learn new sites to research info. Thanks for the read.
Comments are closed.