Assignment 1

1. According to the AICPA's Statements on Standards for Tax Services, what duties does
the tax practitioner owe the client?
According to the AICPA's Statements on Standards for Tax Services, the tax practitioner
owes the client the following duties:
(1) to inform the client of
(a) the potential adverse consequences of a tax return position,
(b) how the client can avoid a penalty through disclosure,
(c) errors in a previously filed tax return, and (d) corrective measures to be taken;
(2) to inquire of the client
(a) when the client must satisfy conditions to take a deduction and
(b) when information provided by him or her appears incorrect, incomplete, or
inconsistent on its face; and
(3) not to disclose tax-related errors without the client's consent.

2. Why should tax researchers note the date on which a Treasury Regulation was adopted?
A. The date should be noted on a Treasury Regulation because the IRC may have been revised
subsequent to that date, meaning the regulation may not interpret the current version of the IRC.

B. Discrepancies can occur between the IRC and Treasury Regulations when the Treasury
Department does not update the regulation to reflect the amended statute.

3. In 2011, there was a change in the authoritative weight of interpretive versus legislative
regulations. Briefly explain what changed and why.
Prior to 2011, courts gave more authority to legislative regulations than to interpretive
regulations. However, after the Supreme Court decision in Mayo Foundation, courts will hold
both interpretive and legislative regulations to the same standard and will overturn them only in
very limited cases.
4. List and describe three methods of researching the major tax service databases.
Keyword
By definition, a keyword is an informational word used in an information retrieval system to
indicate the content of a document with the expectation of a matching search result.
Citation
Citations are references of other authors to give credit for their ideas in the document that is
prepared. Citations are used to reinforce ideas, results and data, to give points of view, examples,
to deepen or amplify the arguments of the work to be elaborated.
Index
An index lists the terms and topics covered in a document, as well as the pages on which they
appear. To create an index, index entries are marked by specifying the name of the main entry
and cross reference in the document, and then the index is generated.

5. Use any major tax service to answer the following questions:

a. What are the principal primary sources?
The most impactful and binding types of authority are called primary sources. These primary
sources are tax law authorities that must be followed and include Bills, congressional activity,
Congressional Record, schedules/calendars, committee information, U.S. treaty information, and
other government resources.
b. What are the principal secondary sources?
Secondary sources can be used to learn about a law, find the primary source of a law, or locate
persuasive authority. Some examples of secondary sources of federal tax law include:
Commercial tax research services offer sources related to code, regulation, ruling analysis, and
judicial case notes.

6. Explain the Golden Rule. Give an example of its application.

The Golden Rule guides people to choose for others what they would choose for themselves. The
Golden Rule is often described as 'putting yourself in someone else's shoes', or 'Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you'.
For example, if someone is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, the golden rule would
suggest that we should let them go, because we would not want to be imprisoned ourselves. This
remains the case even if we use the platinum rule, since the prisoner would likely also prefer to
avoid going to prison.