What Roles Does a Citator Play in Tax Research

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The Answer is Tax practitioners are required torely on tax law that is constantly evolving. They must determine if subsequent events have affected the legal standing of the sources upon which they rely. Thus, they need a tool tohelp them ascertain which legal sources are still good law, which primary sources provide strong precedents, and which have little or novalue. A citator is a legal reference tool through which a tax researcher can learn the history of a legal source and evaluate the strength of its holdings. Basically, a citator can help a researcher ascertain whether a particular primary source document is still good law.
Before a researcher relies on the opinion in a case or the analysis in a ruling, it is important toascertain its legal standing. Thus, when a case or ruling relevant toa client's tax situation is found, a researcher should examine its citator entry todetermine how later legal sources have treated the document of interest. Citators index cases, give their full citations, and list other cases that have cited the case and where each citing case can be found. Given the tremendous number of court cases and rulings issued annually, the citator is a vital tool in the research process. If the primary sources have not been checked through a citator, the research process is not complete. It is important for a researcher toconsider a case in context, totrace its judicial history, and tomonitor the reaction of subsequent courts. By using a citator properly, a researcher can review subsequent courts' reactions and determine the strength of the precedent established by the earlier opinion. Similarly, citators indicate when a ruling has been made obsolete, superseded, or cited favorably or discredited by a court case.
In short, a tax practitioner's research is not complete until a citator is consulted todetermine if the relevant primary source material found by the research still represents good law.

What Roles Does a Citator Play in Tax Research

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What Roles Does a Citator Play in Tax Research

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