IRS Help and Resources

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Mark J. Corey, CPA, JD

Many times tax issues arise that need additional technical guidance to solve. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provides a vast amount of information on its website. One  particularly useful section is IRS Guidance, which contains several sections that allow taxpayers to research tax questions using mostly primary sources.

Per the IRS, website categories for research include:

IRS Guidance in Plain English

This is the starting point to understand basic IRS rules. This section provides a brief description of the various types of IRS publications including regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, private letter rulings, technical advice memorandums, notices and announcements.

Advance Notices

IRS releases Rulings, Procedures and other technical items in advance of publishing them in the Internal Revenue Bulletin.

Tax Regulations

In addition to the regulations that interpret the tax laws, there are links to various technical resources.

Internal Revenue Code

The codified collection of U.S. laws on income, estate and gift, employment and excise taxes, plus administrative and procedural provisions.

IRS Written Determinations

Rulings or determinations issued by the IRS, including Technical Advice Memoranda and Chief Counsel Advice. Sorted by most recent publication number, the listing may also be sorted by Uniform Issue List codes.

Electronic Reading Room

A collection of links to published guidance, rulings, administrative manuals and other items.

These resources are very technical in nature, but if you have a need for technical guidance, this is a great tax resource available for free from the IRS.