by Jay Shuck, West Customer and Product Documentation

Tax simplification may be a pipe dream. But tax research simplification is already here.

Meet Westlaw Tax (tax.westlaw.com), West's newest and most user-friendly tax research resource. Without even selecting a database, you can search West's giant collection of online primary and secondary tax sources in one fell swoop. Your results are categorized and displayed so you can skip right to the sources and documents you need-in just a few moments.

"When we looked at title 26 of the USCA® [United States Code Annotated®] and the CFR [Code of Federal Regulations]," says Darla Agard, senior director of West New Product Development, "it became obvious that we could change how we present the documents to customers and how we integrate our tax content from other sources with the code to enhance tax research."

Law librarians were key to the development of Westlaw Tax. "We tailored much of the development based on what we heard from customers as we developed Westlaw Statutes Plus® and RegulationsPlus® over the past 5 years," says Agard. "A lot of the features and functionality of Westlaw Tax were based on feedback from law librarians, as well as from attorneys in large law firms and other individuals in tax practice."

Here are some of the most exciting features of Westlaw Tax:

With Westlaw Tax, you can retrieve KeyCite citing references for specific subsections of a statute or regulation, thus bringing your research session new levels of precision and efficiency. Simply click the Citing References tab above the code or regulatory section you are viewing. The number of citing references per subsection is displayed in the left frame. In many instances, you can even restrict your citing references result to references that cite a specific paragraph of a subsection. To view the links to citing references for a particular subsection or paragraph, click the subsection or paragraph link.

"There are many Internal Revenue Code sections that have thousands of citing references from case law and analytical materials," Agard says. "When you're using Westlaw Tax, you're able to drill down to the paragraph level. You can get to the citing references for a particular definition or a particular paragraph of the Code more quickly."

You can also use a single Terms and Connectors query or Natural Language description and simultaneously search all tax content on Westlaw, including federal and state statutes, proposed federal and state legislation and regulations, federal regulations, state codes and regulations, federal and state cases, IRS decisions and releases, federal tax briefs and court filings, BNA materials, RIA® reporters, and WG&L® analytical materials. It's easy to restrict your global search to specific jurisdictions, sources, Internal Revenue Code or CFR sections, or dates.

Best of all, your search result-even if massive-is manageable. That's because your result is broken down by document type in an intuitive display. For example, your results page may reveal that you retrieved 17 Treasury regulations; 81 federal tax cases (broken down by appellate level); and 383 IRS documents, 114 of which are IRS published tax guidance documents. To view only the links to the 114 IRS tax guidance documents, click IRS Published Tax Guidance.

When viewing a USCA or CFR section, you can retrieve a wide variety of related materials right from the Related Materials tab. Even better, the Related Materials tab provides separate links for specific types of IRS materials and other distinct document types, so you retrieve only what you need.

"The first link you see on the left is for the IRS materials," says Agard, "because if you're doing tax research, the IRS materials will aid in the interpretation of a statute or Treasury regulation. And within the IRS materials, you see very specific links. If you just want to get to the private letter rulings or other specific type of IRS documents, you can quickly navigate to those documents without having to scroll through the entire list of related materials."

Thanks to a simple toolbar at the top of every page in Westlaw Tax, you can run a global search, find a document by citation, or check a citation in KeyCite right from the page you are viewing. For example, if you realize at any point in your research that you need documents on the deduction for medical expenses, you can select Search from the drop-down list, type deduction for medical expenses in the text box, and click Go-without accessing a search page.

Other valuable features of Westlaw Tax include the Westlaw Tax Directory, the Legislative Timeline tab, and the Search the Web tab.

For more information about Westlaw Tax, ask your librarian relations manager.