Question: We are looking for a lower price substitute for the CCH "Standard
Federal Tax Reporter." Our use of it is very low, but when one of our
general practitioners (the vast majority of our users) has a tax question
s/he often needs something in addition to the BNA Tax Management portfolios,
which we have and plan to keep for now. Alternatives? Answers summarized
below.
Thank you so much for the many suggestions and advice. Thanks in particular
to the following: Bob Hughes, Margaret J. Ross, LaJean Humphries, Janice
Milliken, Lynn Randall, Philleatra Gaylor, Rick Visser, Ellen P. Mahar,
David Lang, Dottie McCaughtry, Suzanne Hoey, Jane Halligan, Kelly Devlin,
Carolyn Simpson, and Lucy Rieger.
Laura
Laura J. Orr
Law Librarian
Washington County Law Library
111 NE Lincoln Street
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Phone: 503-846-8870
Fax: 503-846-3515
Email: laura_orr@co.washington.or.us
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CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter
... web version of CCH Standard Federal Tax ... it's great. We're dropping
the print and going with the web version this year. It's taken a couple of
years to get the attorneys used to it but it will save us a ton of filing
time. .... Good luck.
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For many tax practitioners, there seems to be no substitute for CCH or the
BNA Tax Portfolios, although many tax practitioners do use the RIA tax
service--all of which are expensive. If you think that your users will use
an electronic product, you might try to negotiate more favorable terms for
the web-based service, telling them that although you would like access to
the CCH product, current usage levels don't justify current costs. Maybe an
as you need it arrangement can be worked out.
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<http://www.kleinrock.com/teonline/pages/index_hm.jsp>
We had a solo practitioner join the firm several years ago and he swore by
Kleinrock. It is an online service, fairly inexpensive, and quite easy to
use.
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We switched to the CCH Tax Guide - 2 vols. explanations and several more
code & regs. with history notes. Does not have all the code/reg. annotations
of the Standard Fed. but is half the price. Since we have not had much use
for it either, we will probably let it go too. At least we save half the
cost for one year and found out whether we really needed it.
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Electronic access to Kleinrock Tax Library is a good resource for us. There
is analysis and access to primary materials.
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We have Kleinrock Tax Expert which is a great Database. I think it is
mentioned in the Buyer's Guide. I can send info if it isn't.
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We switched from CCH to the RIA Federal Tax Coordinator a number of years
ago. I don't know what the cost savings would be these days, but I can say
that we are happy with the Tax Coordinator. We seem to be able to locate
what we need quite easily, and the explanatory text is quite clear. Filing
does take some time, but we plan to keep the paper for now. I would say it
is very well organized for such a large set.
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I faced the same issue last year. Our CCH Rep talked me into CCH's Internet
Tax package(?). It included the SFTR and more for slightly less. However, it
got very low use. I asked the tax attorneys that come in ("the regulars" x4)
and they preferred the paper version. So we revived it after a year off. If
you do find something, I'd like to know. Adding the Tax Management
portfolios 7 or 8 years ago went over very well -- those are by far our most
used resource.
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Years ago we had both the CCH's SFTR and RIA's Federal Tax Coordinator. Back
then, the Tax Coordinator was just a bit less expensive. It also took less
work to up-date.
Then we canceled the SFTR. The Tax Coordinator was preferred because it's
language was plainer and easier to understand. It was just as
comprehensive.
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Finally, we converted the print Tax Coordinator in favor of RIA's on-line
service CHECKPOINT--which includes the Tax Coordinator as well as all
primary tax material. CHECKPOINT is very expensive. And our general
practitioners do not have direct access to it, as our license limits us to
10 users.
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Our Tax Group will never cancel BNA's Tax Portfolios in print. Recently, BNA
proposed to significantly undercut RIA's prices. BNA has a new Tax Library
on-line which now has been beefed-up to include primary source material (as
well as their Portfolios.) Tax attorneys were too busy to give BNA a fair
comparison. (And once I compared apples with apples, BNA's prices were not
significantly lower.) I don't understand why your general practitioners
would ever need a more technical treatment of tax law beyond BNA's Tax
Portfolios, anyhow. This is time to ask a tax specialist.
Over the years, CCH sales Reps have made efforts to convert us to their
services. There's always these problems: 1) attorneys don't want to take
the time to evaluate another product, when the product they're using is
adequate and familiar. 2) comparisons are difficult because of the wide
array of components (Primary source material; Tax editorials; Estate
Planning; Pensions; Business: Forms; Treatises) 3) Even as an
attorney-librarian, I do not know enough tax law, to evaluate the quality of
treatment of tax material. So even an analysis of costs holds little weight
against user
preferences.
Good luck.
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We have both RIA and CCH. My thought was to eventually wean my tax guys off
of CCH. Most of them are happy with RIA except for the lack of case
reports.
Although we keep paying for CCH, I've heard from some of my colleagues that
Kleinrock's is a good substitute. As far as I know, it's only available on
CD-Rom. It might be enough for your needs.
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We use to use the CCH product with our Revenue Division. I was able to work
a deal with our Westlaw rep for a great flat rate to use certain identified
(by us) tax databases. Hope this helps.
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This solution depends on how much analysis you need. If the Tax Management
Portfolios will cover the analysis then you may want to drop down to a copy
of the code and a set of the regulations. Both can be obtained from CCH or
Thomson/RIA. They come out twice a year but you order just once a year
depending on need.
This would not work for my Firm. We have a large tax practice
group. At one time we had both Standard Federal Tax Reports (CCH) and US
Tax Reporter (RIA) in print. We still keep the RIA Analysis but
discontinued the US Reports.
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... the Standard Federal, and the Federal Tax Coordinator from RIA are the
premier tax treatises on Federal taxation, along with the United States Tax
Reporter. Because they all include the tax regulations, about 7 fat CCH soft
covers and the IRC Code, 2 fat soft covers- there is a lot to it. The rest
of the volumes explain it all (very complicated area of practice). Included
also are other IRS related docs, reported elsewhere, but sometimes hard to
find, not to mention tax cases- all that in one place makes it a hefty set.
There is a CCH annual Tax Guide, that will get you the basics- it is not
comparable, and I believe there is an abbreviated CCH Tax Service- I am not
that familiar with it. You can make your users go to the USCA and the CFR
if you want to omit the annotations. I will say that any time there is a
major tax act the filing is extensive. So, of course, this was one of those
years. Of the 3 major services, the CCH is by far the easiest and quickest
to file.
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