BEV BUTULA: LegalBitStream navigates tax law

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Where have I been? That is often what I ask myself when I stumble on a great website that I have not seen before. While conducting some tax research, I found one such website: LegalBitStream.

LegalBitStream is a website maintained by the Mayfield Publishing Co. According to its About page, the site “provides searchable databases of United States federal income tax and estate tax law. Databases include complete and timely updated Internal Revenue Service documents and caselaw opinions from all federal courts that issue federal tax law guidance.” The collection includes more than 150,000 documents.

This website is well designed. The various databases are listed on the left side of page. Databases include tax case law, revenue rulings, IRS notices, Treasury decisions, Delegation orders, private letter rulings, and much more. The researcher just selects the materials of interest and a new page appears.

The new search page provides additional information regarding the type of documents to be searched, a search box to enter your query, and the ability to modify the date range. Real life search examples are also provided to guide the researcher.

LegalBitStream clearly outlines its coverage and offers a news feed on its homepage. As a librarian, I particularly like their detailed “Search Help Page.”