When you need exhaustive research on a tax issue—complete with primary and secondary sources, citing references, and citation verification—Westlaw offers several databases and features that fill the bill. But what if you just need somebody to tell you when estimated corporate tax payments are due in your state?

Westlaw fills the bill there, too. For example, take the newly released BNA TM State Tax Research Digest database (TMSTPORT–RDIGEST), organized by state and by type of tax. Just access the Table of Contents service, click the plus (+) symbol preceding your state's name, and click Corporate Taxation or Individual Taxation. That's all it takes to retrieve a single document summarizing the laws governing the major types of taxes in your state's corporate or individual tax scheme. Summaries are bite–sized and easy to read, e.g., "For the franchise tax, a corporation's taxable year is the same as the corporation's taxable year for federal income tax purposes."

If you discover that you need more detail, TMSTPORT–RDIGEST contains links to applicable code sections and to relevant state portfolios, which include analysis of the topic, planning points, examples, and state–by–state charts.

[Note: Not available to law school subscribers.]