Ria Federal Tax Handbook 2005 (Ria Federal Tax Handbook)

Rating:
Summary: Tax Guide vs. IRS publications
Review: I am a CPA who does not practice any public accounting. The latest textbook I have is from college dated 1995. When a friend of mine asked me about the self-employment tax, I thought I should get a up-to-date tax guidebook since it has changed many areas drastically. I ordered all those free IRS publications and I also tried this book after I saw it at AICPA web site. Basically both says the same things of course, but IRS publications are explained short and easy, while Ria Federal Tax Handbook has some portions of making-simple-things-too-complicted-with-exceptions-to-exceptions-disallowance-rule, etc. but also has many situation examples. If you know where to find a particular tax question, IRS publication may be sufficient, but if you have no idea what to do in certain situation, then this handbook has many illustrations (examples)or scenario so this is more handy. Plus IRS publication often refers to "for more information see publication xxxx" and I had to flip flop all over the places. I have not seen or used any other tax textbook or guidebook, so I cannot compare with other books out there but overall I like this handbook. It's organized and covers lots of things.