Tax Research from CFS Tax Software is a CD-based tax research program that provides the following: primary documents such as Internal Revenue Code, IRS Publications, Regulations, Revenue Rulings & Procedures, Letter Rulings and Technical Advice Memos, announcements and notices, the Penalty Handbooks, new legislation and tax laws, SSA publications, U.S. Tax Treaties and court opinions, in addition to a linked directory to the web sites of all state tax authorities. CFS offers quarterly updates to the research libraries and also offers a California-specific research product.
COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT
Tax Research can run on most computers running Windows 95 or later, with low processor requirements and RAM sufficient to the operating system. During installation, the user can elect to keep the research libraries, which are quite large, on the CD or install them to the hard drive. If installed, the hard drive will need to have at least 600MB of available space. If the libraries are not installed, only about 40MB is necessary, but the user will need to keep the installation disc handy and insert it into the computer during searches. Network installation is supported in Windows and Novell environments.
USING THE PROGRAM
The program’s primary interface includes a row of pull-down menus across the top, followed by two rows of icons, the bottom one providing a search field that saves recent queries in a pull-down list similar to the way Internet Explorer’s address bar does. By default, the work area opens to a master menu of the program’s various research libraries, of which there are 18. These libraries work independently of each other – when one is opened, it is like opening a separate book that is laid out as one long document on a browser page. Multiple libraries can be opened at the same time and cascaded or tiled for easy viewing. The toolbars at the top of the screen provide browser-style forward and back buttons, as well as search techniques, moving between hits, tagging records, printing, updating the program online and other functions, as well as a scrollable search history display.
The libraries contain multiple documents, generally arranged end-to-end by date, and provide the option to search within the library or perform a multi-library search. While the library-specific searches all provide keyword searching, they also offer varying query techniques specific to the topic. For instance, the U.S. Court Opinions library provides the ability to search by court (Supreme Court, Appellate Courts, etc.), by case number or by involved parties. The libraries display the document in a large, central window, with an additional contents tree on the left that can be accessed by selecting the Browse tab from above the work area. Additional tabs allow you to quickly move between views of the document, the search results and Hit list. The menu tree is very useful because it allows you to easily jump between chapters and paragraphs of documents. The U.S. Tax Treaties section, for instance, provides agreements between the United States and specific countries that can be moved between using this tree. You also have the library-specific search, but scrolling down most documents isn’t much of an option since they are so large. For example, the Tax Treaties library contains all treaties and the Model Conventions on one long document that, when converted to Word, is more than 2,800 pages long. (The company noted that after searching a library (or multiple libraries), the “hits” are highlighted in the document. You can use the next (or previous) hit buttons to move through a searched document and view all the resulting hits.)
Liz Stettiner, an EA in Menlo Park, California, says she uses the program along with another, “just to be sure the information provided is reliable. It’s always good to get a second opinion.” She said her practice, which provides payroll, individual and small business tax services to the heart of the Silicon Valley, “encourages new businesses to start off on the right foot,” and using a reliable research tool helps her do that. While pricing was a factor in her decision, she said the usability of the program and easy readability were key factors in her decision to use the product.
SUMMARY
CFS Tax Research is a stand-alone system that does not integrate with other programs, but does make it easy to print or cut and paste documents or paragraphs into other programs, such as word processing documents. It provides good search capabilities with multiple access points to search queries, whether specific to a document, library or searching across the entire program. The program also has good help features with a program tutorial, as well as phone and web-based technical support. Tax Research is updated quarterly and is available on disk. The program offers a fairly comprehensive collection of primary tax resources, including information from many government entities that affect taxation. While it only offers state-specific information for California (through another product), it does offer links and contact information to the taxing authority in each state. The program offers a good basic approach to tax research in an inexpensive format. CFS Tax Research costs $149 for the quarterly updated version, with annual renewals available for $139. A one-time CD issue with no updates is $99, with renewal for $89. A network license is an additional $50 annually.
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