TaxAlmanac:Overview

From TaxAlmanac

What TaxAlmanac offers:

TaxAlmanac is an FREE online forum for tax professionals like you. Designed as part of Intuit's commitment to tax and accounting professionals, TaxAlmanac offers:

• Comprehensive Search Instantaneous Answers. You can search over 7,800 articles (and the number is growing!) Find the information you’re looking for fast, with the ability to create watch lists for particular articles
• Internal Revenue Code and Treasury Regulations TaxAlmanac provides updated versions of the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury Regulations for free. The Internal Revenue Code offered by the IRS has not been updated since 2002. Most other sites that offer access to the Internal Revenue Code for free are, in many instances, merely posting the same outdated version of the code. TaxAlmanac continues to update the Internal Revenue Code as it is amended.
• Simple to Get Started No log-in is required to search the site and find valuable information. Creating your own specific username and password allows you to join your peers and become part of this exciting community. You can contribute online as well as post information about yourself or your firm. It only takes a few seconds to create a user name and password. Creating an account requires you to complete only two fields and doesn’t require any personally identifiable information.
• It’s FREE We do not plan or intend to ever charge for our facilitation of this online tax research tool.

Background

This is not a new or unproven concept. Similar types of collaborative communities such as the ebay website, Amazon reviews, and Linuxoperating system have revolutionized how people shop, communicate, and work. The closest example of what we are facilitating with TaxAlmanac can be found at www.wikipedia.org. Time magazine recently referenced TaxAlmanac in its June 6, 2005 article about the phenomenon of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the Internet and now provides expert knowledge in over 1.3 million articles - far more than the familiar Encyclopedia Britannica.

What’s in it for you?

Why should you take the time to add your expertise to TaxAlmanac? Because it benefits you – and thousands of your peers!

• Tax Preparers You have developed a wealth of knowledge through your years of experience. Why not be recognized for that? When users of TaxAlmanac read your articles online, they can view the article history to see that you are the author. From there, they can link to your User Page to learn more about you and your firm. Because TaxAlmanac is collaborative, other tax professionals can make suggestions and add to your original contributions. Through this collaboration of thousands of tax professionals from around the United States, you can learn even more about your particular areas of interest. Simply put, none of us are as smart as all of us. Others may expand on your original posting to mention obscure exceptions to standard rules, special circumstances, and how the theory is applied in different situations. Like iron sharpening iron, this collaboration benefits all those that contribute content- and it gives you a forum to learn more about the topics that most interest you! There is often no need to create articles from scratch. You probably have documented previous research in many of your tax files that would benefit others. Sure, it may be directed at a specific situation and may not be completely comprehensive. That is the beauty of TaxAlmanac. Because TaxAlmanac is all about collaboration, we expect others to add to your work – and we expect you will be able to add to the work posted by others.




• Academia/Professors TaxAlmanac is a great forum for you to publish drafts of your articles and research. You can publish exposure drafts of your articles to hone them for other publications. Or simply add shorter, less formal summaries to help you develop your thoughts around a particular topic. By viewing the subsequent discussion around your TaxAlmanac articles and comments from others in the tax community, you can learn even better what issues are of importance to practitioners. Stay in touch with the tax practitioner community – real time! TaxAlmanac also provides a forum for your students to develop their research and writing skills.




• Accounting Students You are already doing research and writing papers & summaries for many of your tax classes. Why not repurpose some of those documents as articles on TaxAlmanac? Think of it as a collaborative blog! Expose your work to thousands of other tax professionals. Wouldn’t your resume look even better if you were able to list as an accomplishment if one of your articles is selected as the TaxAlmanac Featured Article?

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The benefits to you for adding to TaxAlmanac are obvious. But to paraphrase a famous quote, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Why not get involved today!