Treasury Regulations in the United States

The related regulations of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) are Title 26 of the Code of Federal Regulations. You can find these in print and electronically with all versions of the Code of Federal Regulations (see “Code of Federal Regulations” in this legal Encyclopedia).

The IRC and related regs are also published as free-standing paperback volumes (from CCH and RIA), as CD-ROMs, and they are included in most online tax databases, including Tax Analysts’ Federal Research Library, RIA’s CheckPoint and the electronic edition of the CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter on Intelliconnect.

You can also get the Regulations as part of the United States Code of Federal Regulations. This is particularly useful because there are reliable, free Internet editions of the CFR .

Historical Editions: Some larger law libraries keep volumes of the Regulations back many years, and you can find old Regs in historical editions of the CFR (see the “Historical Editions” section of the Code of Federal Regulations entries). Also, there is a multi-volume set called Cumulative Changes in the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and Tax Regulations Under the Code that covers 1954 through 1985. Checkpoint has historical editions of the preambles to Proposed and Final Regulations back to 1975 (subscription).

Legislative History: The legislative history of Federal tax laws is similar to the legislative history of other laws. See the Federal Legislative History entry for general information. In addition, you can find tax legislative history materials published in the following sets.

Seidman’s Legislative History of Federal Income Tax Laws, 1938-1861 (The Lawbook Exchange);
Seidman’s Legislative History of Federal Income and Excess Profits Tax Laws, 1953-1939 (Prentice Hall);
A Guide and Analytical Index to the Internal Revenue Acts of the United States, 1909-1950 (W.S. Hein & Co.);
Legislative History of Federal Income and Excess Profits Tax Laws, 1953-1939(Prentice Hall);
Internal Revenue Acts: Text and Legislative History (West) from 1954 on; and
Tax Management — Primary Sources (BNA), which breaks legislative history down by Code section for the years covered (the 1970s to at least the 104th Congress covering 1995-1996); and
Internal Revenue Acts of the United States, 1909-1950: Legislative Histories, Laws and Administrative Documents, a huge nearly comprehensive set, available in the Tax and Economic Reform module of HeinOnline.

The Taxation & Economic Reform module of HeinOnline is a good source for legislative histories of older tax laws including the two Seidman’s Legislative History books mentioned above, the four-volume Legislative History of the United States Tax Conventions, which covers tax treaties up to about 2010, the huge Internal Revenue Acts of the United States, 1909-1950: Legislative Histories, Laws and Administrative Documents set, and several legislative histories for individual tax laws.

Conference Reports are published in the IRS’s Cumulative Bulletins (see “Internal Revenue Service”). They sometimes come as freebies for subscribers to the multi-volume tax treatises.

Tax legislative history materials are also available in all the general legislative history sources discussed in the “Federal Legislative History” entry.

Public comments on Regulations: For recent comments, check Regulations.gov. If that doesn’t work, you can try Tax Notes Today through the Federal Research Library, Lexis(TAXANA;TNT) or Westlaw (TNT). For older comments call the IRS library and see if they can help. If not, you might have to file a FOIA request with the IRS.

Treasury Regulations

Treasury Regulations in the United States

See Also

Treasury regulations Background