Random Tax Research Tips

Many tax practitioners use Google as their first or primary tax research resource. Even though I pay for the truly excellent Lexis Advance Tax research platform, when I look up a Code section or Treasury regulation,  I usually start by googling the citation and clicking on the Cornell website. But this isn't about me, it's a tax research tip. Here's how to do this:

1. Google your citation. For example, if I want to look up Code section 472, I would search for <IRC 472> (without brockets). This will usually take you directly to a link to Cornell. 
2. If you are searching for a Code section under 100 or so, you might get spurious results related to Internet Relay Chat or something else that uses the "IRC" acronym. As you train Google, these will go away at the top of your search results.
3. When searching for Treasury regulations, you can use "Reg 1.472-1" or "26 CFR 1.472-1". You can even search for "1.472-1", but some browsers interpet this as math and only show that result, resulting in extra clicks to get where you need to go. 
4. If the Reg cite has a letter in it, Google will usually interpret that appropriately. This search for the bonus depreciation regs is a good example. This does not always work. Google interprets (i) as an imaginary number. A search for the MACRS LKE regs yields a calculator as the top result.
5. If you do not know how to find the Code section you need, try Googling your search term(s) and add either "IRC" or "Code section" (or even "Code §") to your search.
6. If you click on the LMGTFY links in the last sentence, you can see that these lead to different results when searching for LIFO. 
7. The first two lead you directly to where you need to be. The third one does not, at least not in the top results. 
8. When searching for something, you might need to use different search terms, because writers cite the Code (or regs) in different ways. 
9. Sometimes it helps to restrict your search to the IRS website. You can do this by adding <site:irs.gov> (without brockets) to the search. For example, here is our earlier search for LIFO. This did not take you directly to the Cornell website, of course, but it does provide enough information to figure out the Code section. Eventually.
10. When looking for a Code section, I do not find restricting the search to the IRS website to be very helpful. For more complicated searches where I am not looking for a Code section, it can be very useful.