In theory, it should be fairly straightforward to find the tax law. At the federal level, we have the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26 of the U.S. Code) available at a congressional website, Cornell Law School site and from commercial tax publishers. Regulations can also be found at the Cornell Law School website, perhaps a few others (including this blogger’sites for regs published in the Federal Register for 2011 through the present), and commercial research publishers. And the U.S. Tax Court and many other federal courts publish their opinions on their websites (but not all). The best way to find everything and have the ability to confirm currency of the information is via a commercial tax publisher.
But, there are challenges of finding the law even with complete access to it for a fee, in how it sometimes is assembled. I’ll demonstrate this using temporary regulations issued in July 1987 (TD 8145), an IRS notice issued in 1989 that modified parts of the 1987 regulations, a 2020 effort to replace the 1989 notice, and an oddity of a incorrect explanation of part of the 1989 notice in the 2019 IRS Pub 535 on business expenses (it was correct in prior versions of this pub). I’ll also attempt to explain why this all happened, AND how it can all be avoided. After all, the tax law is complex enough and should not be made even more complex by challenges of finding that law!
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