Library and Resources
There are several resources that you can access from the School of Taxation & Business Law website to help you with your academic and research goals. Online tax and legal resources can be found
here. From this site you can access:
- The UNSW Library’s catalogue, online databases and e-journals
- The UNSW Learning Centre for online academic skills resources (e.g., essay and assignment writing, plagiarism), and
- Gateway’ links to legislation, case law, tax and accounting organisations and international tax agencies.
UNSW Library
UNSW Library provides information, resources, services and research support that can assist UNSW students complete their course requirements. Online library resources such as online databases, e-books and e-journals are available 24 hours a day via the Library Homepage.
Information about your borrowing rights for hardcopy resources is available from the Library Homepage. All students can use the InterLibrary Loan service to access resources not held within UNSW Library.
Library Subject Guides
The UNSW Library has developed Subject Guides which identify major electronic resources in specific subject areas and are the ideal starting point for research.
Subject Guides
There are a range of Subject Guides in Business and Law topics, and a guide specific to electronic Taxation resources in the Taxation Subject Guide.
Getting Library help
The Help Zones are where you can find library staff to help you. They are located just inside the entrance to each library. See opening hours for staffed hours of library Help Zones. See Contact Us for telephone numbers of the Help Zones. Help Zone staff can assist you with:
- locating journal articles, cases and legislation
- searching on-line databases and e-journals
- loans of books
You can also use the ‘Ask Us’ icon on the Library Homepage to ask the Library a question online.
For library related queries you can also contact the Faculty Outreach Librarian to the UNSW Business School.
Tax-Specific Information
For more tax specific information, you should access the
‘Taxation’ subject guide or the
‘Business’ subject guides.
UNSW Library staff will assist you with:
- locating journal articles, cases and legislation
- searching on-line databases and e-journals through Sirius
- loans of books
- photocopies of articles, cases etc which can be arranged free of charge.
You can contact Library staff via the Library website or by telephone on +61 (2) 9385 2650. Additionally, contact information for the Faculty Outreach Librarians.
A GUIDE TO TAX RESEARCH
Students undertaking postgraduate studies in taxation will usually be familiar with local publications dealing with taxation such as textbooks, loose-leaf services, journals, seminar papers. However, students may or may not be familiar with many unpublished papers, or overseas publications which may be useful in enhancing your research.
Where to Start
Once your topic of study has been approved, what next? You will most likely concentrate on postgraduate taxation studies adopting an accounting, economics or legal perspective. You may integrate some of these perspectives. With this in mind this guide is divided into:
- Accounting
- Economics
- Legal
Some researchers often pursue research by following footnotes from either a book or a journal article or seminar paper. Is this good enough? What if the original writer missed some important learned article or case or section of legislation?
A good place to start is the Library catalogue. If unsure of a particular title, use the options of either Course or Keywords. Using the Course option assumes you know the course headings used by a particular library. Often the Keyword option is better as words used in the title or contents will be indexed. Australian library catalogues may be found by using the Australian Libraries Gateway. Another useful place to start is the Australian National Bibliography which listed most books and journals published in Australia. This ceased at the end of 1996 and to find out the same information you can search the National Library of Australia catalogue. If a title is missing from the shelves, there is often a good chance, recent publications in particular, are sometimes available electronically via the Internet and elsewhere eg cases, legislation, government reports. Some full text journals are available on the Internet, however many are not indexed in journal indexes. The UNSW Online library resources such as online databases, e-books and e-journals are available 24 hours a day via the Library Homepage.
Accounting Accounting Journal Indexes The ones useful for tax research and available in hard copy and electronically include:
- ABI/Inform—Some articles are in full text. Primarily overseas materials.
- Accounting & Tax Index—Primarily US focus and available as CD ROM as Accounting & Tax Database and online as Accounting & Tax Online.
- APAIS—Australian Public Affairs Information Service. Compiled by the National Library of Australia and indexes and abstracts local and overseas articles received by the library.
- Australian Accounting and Taxation Database.
- Australian Business Index (ABIX)—This indexes business articles from newspapers and magazines.
- Business Periodicals Index (BPI)
- Financial Journals Index (UK)
- International Taxation Issues Database (INTAX)
- PAIS (Public Affairs Information Services)—Focuses primarily on US materials.
- Social Sciences Index—Focuses primarily on US materials.
- Taxabs—Australian Taxation Abstracts is an Australian index of Australian taxation materials.
- Taxindex 1989–1995—Was a useful index produced by Enterprise Information Management but has not been updated since the end of 1995.
- Taxtrace is an Australian index produced by the Taxation Institute of Australia (TIA). This is available via the Internet and indexes all journals, Taxation in Australia, and seminar/conference papers relevant to taxation received by the TIA. This is available to TIA members only. Student TIA members can use Taxtrace, but not the actual TIA Library. For details concerning TIA student membership, contact the TIA on (02) 9232 3422.
Economics Economics Journal Indexes The ones useful for tax research and available in hard copy and electronically include:
- ABI/Inform—Some articles are in full text. Primarily overseas materials.
- APAIS—Australian Public Affairs Information Service. Compiled by the National Library of Australia and indexes and abstracts local and overseas articles received by the library.
- Australian Accounting and Taxation Database
- Australian Business Index (ABIX)—This indexes business articles from newspapers and magazines.
- Bibliography of Asian Studies
- Business Periodicals Index (BPI).
- EconLit
- Financial Journals Index (UK)
- Index to International Economics, Development and Finance
- International Taxation Issues Database (INTAX)
- PAIS (Public Affairs Information Services)—Focuses primarily on US materials.
- Social Sciences Index—Focuses primarily on US materials
- Taxabs—Australian Taxation Abstracts is an Australian index of Australian taxation materials.
- Taxtrace—An Australian index produced by the Taxation Institute of Australia (TIA). This is available via the Internet and indexes all journals, Taxation in Australia, and seminar/conference papers relevant to taxation received by the TIA. This is available to TIA members only. Student TIA members can use Taxtrace, but not the actual TIA Library. For details concerning TIA student membership, contact the TIA on (02) 9232 3422.
- The Federal Treasury publishes Treasury Research Papers on various topics and reviews, inquiries and consultations
Legal Legal Journal Indexes The ones useful for tax research and available in hard copy and electronically include:
- AGIS—Attorney-General’s Information Service. Compiled within the federal Attorney-General’s Department Lionel Murphy Library and indexes and abstracts local and overseas journal articles received in the Library.
- APAIS—Australian Public Affairs Information Service. Compiled by the National Library of Australia and indexes and abstracts local and overseas articles received by the library.
- Australian Taxation Law Library (through AustLii)—Part of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLii), and developed in conjunction with the Australian Taxation Office. This Library provides a ‘one-stop shop’ to search all tax-related resources on AustLii, at:
- Current Law Index/LegalTrac—Is a US publication which focuses primarily on US legal journals and includes Australian, New Zealand, English, Canadian and other jurisdictions.
- Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals—Is a US publication which focuses on the non-common law countries such as Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.
- Law Journals Index—A UK index focussing primarily on UK published material.
- Taxabs—Australian Taxation Abstracts is an Australian index of Australian taxation materials.
- Taxtrace—Is an Australian index produced by the Taxation Institute of Australia (TIA). This is available via the Internet and indexes all journals, Taxation in Australia, and seminar/conference papers relevant to taxation received by the TIA. This is available to TIA members only. Student TIA members can use Taxtrace, but not the actual TIA Library. For details concerning TIA student membership, contact the TIA on (02) 9232 3422.
Unusual Sources
Some of these sources would be regarded as off the beaten track. Included are some sites on the Internet and elsewhere.
Australia’s
Department of the Parliamentary Library publishes a number of papers, some of which relate to tax. However, the best way to locate such a document is to use the site’s
Search facility.
Theses may be accessed by searching the various sites available on the Internet. For example:
Electronic Resources
There are many potential electronic resources available for postgraduate tax students. These vary from subscription services to free Internet sites. Noted here is only a selection of available information.
Subscription services- Australian Tax Practice CD ROMs and online services via the Internet
- CCH CD ROMs and CCH Interactive Services Internet site
- LEXIS-NEXIS is the largest legal database in the world and there is a Taxation Library, however most of the material there relates to the US. Butterworths Online contains Australian primary and secondary materials.
- Butterworths Online contains Australian primary and secondary materials.
Free Internet services The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) contains Australian primary and secondary materials. For recent cases click on ‘Recent Cases’ for the court/tribunal judgments you are interested in.
Library catalogues are a good source of finding out about unpublished theses which may have been deposited in libraries. Another place to look is the National Library of Australia.
Another useful site is the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) Taxation Research Platform. To access this, log into the UNSW Library (from the ‘myLibrary’ tab) then access the IBFD platform.
Further reading Note also the various legal research guides listed in the Guide to Tax Research.
Brown, BE (ed) Canadian business and economics: a guide to sources of information, Ottawa, Canadian Library Association, 1976.
Campbell, MJ Financial directories of the world: a guide to information sources in finance, economics, employment, property and the law, Guernsey, Vallancey International, 1982.
Demarest, RR Accounting: information sources, Detroit, Gale Research Co, 1970.
Fletcher, J Information sources in economics, 2nd ed, London, Butterworths, 1984. Sources of Australian economic information, Melbourne, Infoquest Business Publications, 1983.
Stewart, J & Denison, T Electronic sources of information for business in Australia and New Zealand, 3rd ed, Melbourne, RMIT Publishing, 1997.
The website for this course is on Moodle.