Each of the tax research databases described below integrate all the primary sources for federal tax law with the publisher's secondary sources. College of Law members have access either through proxy or dedicated accounts.
These databases allow the user to navigate efficiently between the full text of primary source documents such as the Internal Revenue Code sections, regulations, IRS rulings, and the publisher's secondary sources including editorial explanations and annotations. The databases do not differ much on their coverage of the primary sources. What sets them apart is the quality of their editorial content, the way they organize their information, and their web interfaces. In a commercial setting, pricing is also a key consideration.
As general legal research tools, Lexis and Westlaw provide access to these sources, but it is usually better to use one of the specialized tax research databases above as they have unique features to make the tax research process more efficient.