Prescribed Textbook/s
Considering the individualised nature of this course, there are no specific texts or references prescribed for all students. Your research supervisor will be able to recommend references relevant to your research topic, and your own legal research skills will be vital in developing your own research paper. A guide to taxation research is provided later in this Outline.
Citation and Style Guide
In presenting written work for assessment in this course you must use an appropriate and consistent style for referencing and citation. The following is a selection of acceptable citation and style guides, which you may use as the basis for your written work. You must purchase or have access to one of the following publications.
Australian guide to legal citation (Melbourne University Law Review Association & Melbourne Journal of International Law, 3rd ed, 2010).
(This is free to download and is the citation style guide used by the majority of Australian legal journals.)
- Rozenberg P, Australian guide to uniform legal citation (Sydney: Lawbook Co, 2nd ed, 2003).
- Stuhmcke A, Legal referencing (Sydney: LexisNexis, 4th ed, 2012).
Note that in disciplines other than law (i.e. Accounting, Economics and Computing) the literature in these courses has, for the most part, been written in the Harvard style and in these courses you may prefer to use the Harvard style of referencing. Guides to using the Harvard style can be accessed at the following websites:
In this course, it is acceptable to use either one of the prescribed legal styles, or the Harvard style. However, whatever style you adopt must be used consistently and correctly—you must not mix one style with another.
A guide to tax research
Students undertaking postgraduate studies in taxation will usually be familiar with local publications dealing with taxation such as textbooks, looseleaf 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 However, students may or may not be familiar with many unpublished papers, or overseas publications which may be useful in enhancing your research.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.
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.
- 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:
By searching various library catalogues, key in under keywords: tax* and thesis. One problem is that you will get irrelevant hits such as taxonomy etc.
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.
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’) then access the IBFD.
Further reading
Note also the various legal research guides listed in 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.