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Website
of the Month: BNA Tax & Accounting
By
Susan B. Anders
FEBRUARY 2008 - The
BNA Tax & Accounting website, at www.bnatax.com,
is the commercial website for Tax Management, Inc., focusing on
the tax-related products offered by the parent company, BNA. Much
like the websites of tax product vendors reviewed in prior columns,
BNA Tax & Accounting focuses on providing current and potential
clients access to its products. Several interesting features are
available to any user, however, including tax legislation resources,
tax news headlines, and free product trials.
The home
and main pages feature a menu bar at the top of each page offering
tabs for: “home,” “products,” “press
center,” “authors/advisors,” and “training
& support,” as well as a subscriber log-in and search
tool. On the left is an index of selected features, including
“recent developments,” “selected recent legislation
and IRS guidance,” “journals & commentary,”
“products,” “productivity tools,” and
“about BNA Tax & Accounting.” The right side of
each page contains a set of links specific to that topic.
Navigation
around the website is relatively easy, especially when the left-side
index is available. Nevertheless, some features exist on essentially
separate websites, without direct links back to BNA Tax &
Accounting. There are some inconsistencies in the formats in which
resources are provided, the right-side links, and whether links
open in the same or a separate window.
Free
Resources
“Productivity
tools,” at the bottom of the left-side index, offers some
handy free resources. BNA Tax Management’s Quick Tax
Reference for 2007/2008 provides standard mileage rates;
income tax rate schedules for individuals, corporations, and estates
and trusts; estate and gift tax rates; standard deduction and
personal exemption amounts; and pension and retirement plan limits.
An online tax calendar can also be downloaded as a PDF. Useful
links include specific IRS webpages, the Federal Agencies Directory,
FASB, GASB, and the IASB.
The left-side
index heading “selected recent legislation and IRS guidance”
offers resources covering the Pension Protection Act of 2006,
hurricane-related tax relief, and the Tax Relief and Healthcare
Act of 2006. (It should be noted that this review was performed
before the 2007 AMT legislation was finalized, and the website
may have been updated accordingly.) For each of these legislative
topics, users can access free BNA summaries and commentaries,
as well as PDFs of the primary sources. Subscribers can access
sample client letters.
The hurricane-related
tax relief and Tax Relief and Healthcare Act resources are reproduced
on the BNA Tax & Accounting website. The hurricane-related
materials are particularly helpful because they summarize the
several pieces of legislation, various IRS notices, revenue procedures,
and press releases, for hurricanes Wilma, Rita, and Katrina. The
summary of the Tax Relief and Healthcare Act of 2006 addresses
the extension provisions in particular.
The Pension
Protection Act of 2006 resources are similar to the other two
tax acts, but they merit a subsidiary website, the Pension Protection
Act Center. The center’s main page offers links to current
stories. The left side of the main page provides an index of resources,
including the text of the law, JCT analysis, BNA analysis, special
reports, and links of interest.
Tax
News
The center
area of the homepage presents “today’s top tax article,”
from the BNA Daily Tax Report, and “featured analysis,”
from “insights & commentary.” “Recent developments”
on the left-side index provides links to federal tax highlights,
state tax highlights, and transfer pricing. Under “journal
reports/highlights” on the left-side index, there are links
to excerpts from the most recent issues of monthly publications,
such as Estates, Gifts & Trusts Journal. These connect
to webpages with the headlines and brief introductions of the
articles featured in BNA’s weekly or monthly reports.
While only
the headlines of the weekly/monthly reports are available to nonsubscribers,
all users can access “insights & commentary,”
a selection of commentaries on tax issues from BNA publications.
An index of the online commentaries is available via the link
on the left-side index, and the subsidiary page link to the articles.
A link to an alphabetical author listing is available, which provides
subscribers with direct connections to BNA portfolios written
by each author.
Free
Trials
Users may
request a free trial of BNA products from the left-side index
or various other locations throughout the site. They can choose
free trials of three resources, including Accounting Policy
& Practice Report, the new BNA Tax & Accounting Center,
and the daily, weekly, state, and transfer pricing reports. An
online tour of the Tax & Accounting Center is also available.
Readers familiar
with BNA are aware that Tax Management publishes more than 30
“portfolios” on specific tax and accounting topics,
covering U.S. income; real estate; compensation planning; estates,
gifts, and trusts; and foreign income. Purchase information is
available under the “products” tab on the menu bar,
and via an advertisement on the right side of the homepage. A
useful feature of the portfolio product is access to a complete
table of contents for each volume, downloadable as PDFs.
The website
also offers current, detailed indices for BNA’s biweekly
Accounting Policy & Practice Report and Daily
Tax Report. These publications have subsidiary websites under
www.bna.com, and open in separate windows. The Accounting
Policy & Practice Report offers a standards index, covering
the AICPA, EITF, FASB, GASB, IASB, PCAOB, and SEC. Both reports
provide an alphabetical table of cases for the court decisions
covered in each publication.
Susan
B. Anders, PhD, CPA, is a professor of accounting at St.
Bonaventure University, Bonaventure, N.Y. |
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