Today, February 3, marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 16th Amendment, which gave Congress the power to create an income tax. Shortly thereafter, Congress enacted the Income Tax Law of 1913, 38 Stat. 114 (Oct. 3, 1913) -- the first of many! (The income tax provisions start on page 166)

The 1913 Form 1040 return was the picture of simplicity and was only 4 pages, including instructions. An annual exemption of $3,000 (the equivalent of $70,000 today!) enabled most Americans to escape the 1%--6% tax.

The legislative history of the Income Tax Law of 1913 is available in Seidman's legislative history of federal income tax laws, 1938-1861, which the Library has in its print collection. An extensive collection of pre-compiled legislative histories of federal tax laws is available on Hein Online in the "Taxation & Economic Reform in America Parts I & II, 1781--2012" library.

Photo: IRS 1040 Tax Form Being Filled Out by kenteegardin CC by SA 2.0

Members of the Georgetown Law community can now read BNA Law Reports on your mobile device with the Bloomberg/BNA Law Reports mobile app in the iTunes store. Whether you're following the Daily Labor Report, the World Data Protection Report or any of the other BNA reports, you'll be able to access them on your mobile device, by following these easy steps.

1. In the iTunes store, search for Bloomberg Law Reports - you will see two apps.
2. Download the ORANGE app.                  
3. Sign On with your Georgetown Law School Bloomberg ID.
4. Read any of the BNA Law reports you have previously selected through your Bloomberg Law account.

Please feel free to ask a reference librarian if you need assistance!

Academic Search Premier is now searchable on your mobile device. EBSCO recently released a mobile app for iPhones and Androids which is available for all members of the Georgetown Law community. Just click on the link at the bottom of the Academic Search Premier web site and enter your Georgetown Law e-mail address. EBSCO will send you an e-mail with a link to the free app in the iTunes store or on Google Play as well as an authentication key to access the Georgetown Law subscription to interdisciplinary scholarly journals.

Feel free to ask a reference librarian if you have any questions about searching on  Academic Search Premier.

Bloomberg Law has added Taxation to its Practice Center interface. The Tax Practice Center provides ready access to

• Primary statutory and regulatory tax materials, including the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, and IRS administrative guidance
• Tax case decisions and dockets, including the United States Tax Court
• BNA Tax Management Portfolios
• Practicing Law Institute treatises
• Selected tax journals
• M&A and related transactional forms and agreements

Students and faculty interested in requesting an account on Bloomberg Law may obtain one by following the instructions available in the Library's catalog.

Whether researching the 1860 General Laws of Kansas or a 1720 law from Virginia, the HeinOnline Session Law Library is the best starting point for researching state legislation.

Since 2007, HeinOnline has been digitizing the official bound session laws for all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The D.C. Register and the U.S. Statutes at Large are also included in this collection on HeinOnline. Currently, session laws from all states are available from the state's inception through the latest official bound version and the libraries are updated on a regular basis as new session laws are published by each state.

For over 10 years, Science.gov has provided access to federal government scientific research searching “over 55 databases and over 2100 selected websites from 13 federal agencies”.

 As legal scholars and practitioners research across multiple disciplines, this web portal is an excellent starting point for the student working on a space law paper, a practitioner researching the environmental consequences of pesticides or a legal consultant on energy conservation.  The portal even searches the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office databases for those researching applied science and technology issues. Some of the other federal agencies searched include:

•  NASA
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Department of Transportation
• Department of Energy
• Department of Agriculture

 The results of a simple search on the home page can be narrowed by topic and date, as well as by text or multimedia. Feel free to ask a reference librarian if you have any questions about researching on the Science.gov web portal.

Bloomberg Law is a legal database that provides access to statutes, cases, regulations, a case citator, and secondary source materials. Particular strengths of and unique materials available on Bloomberg Law include:

• BNA treatises, practice manuals, and portfolios;
• Practice Areas organizing common primary and secondary materials for several specialized fields including bankruptcy, finance, and securities law;
• Corporate and financial news and information, including EDGAR access and Bloomberg financial analyses;
• Exclusive access to PLI treatises;
• Transactional law-specific resources, such as example documents for M&A and contracts; and
• News searching with well-designed and indexed metadata, which minimizes the need to for complicated "terms and connectors" searching.

In addition, Bloomberg Law provides Georgetown Law students and faculty free access to real-time-updated federal PACER dockets and to many state and some foreign dockets. All court documents available through these dockets (such as pleadings, motions, briefs, and orders) can be downloaded through Bloomberg Law.

Students and faculty interested in requesting an account on Bloomberg Law may obtain one by following the instructions available in the Library's catalog.

A new "Big Data" resource of tax material has recently been made available. On October 30, Public.Resource.Org made available 10 years' worth -- nearly 6.5 million -- Exempt Organization Form 990 returns filed by exempt organizations and private foundations as well as unrelated business income (UBIT) returns filed by these organizations. The data set contains returns from January 2002 through September 2012, and will be updated monthly.

At this time, these returns are only available in pdf format, but Public.Resource.Org plan to extract the underlying data from these returns to make them more amenable for data analysis.

These records and more information about the data set are available at https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/readme.html.

Researchers looking for congresional publications, such as hearings, committee reports and prints will notice that ProQuest Congressional has a new look. Unveiled recently, the new interface features a Basic Search, Advanced Search and Search By Number option.

While the Basic Search searches full text, titles and all bibliographic data, the Advanced Search capability allows users to restrict their search to a specific date range or Congress, as well as publication type providing more focused results.

The Search by Number feature is best used with a known citation, such as 107 S. Rpt. 5. Users should also make use of the "How Do I?" feature in the right hand column, which will direct them to the best search form for legislative histories.

Please feel free to ask a reference librarian if you have any questions about the new ProQuest Congressional interface!

The Bluebook is now available for iPad and iPhone users for $40 to download for use in the app called rulebook, from Ready Reference Apps. This contains the full text of the entire 19th edition of the book, which is fully searchable.  You can bookmark sections, add notes and highligt sections. There's been an online version of the Bluebook for a while, but this is the first time this content is available in a native mobile app.  You can't get it on an Android or Windows Phone device, but if you own an iPhone and an iPad, you can get it on both devices with a single purchase, as long as they share the same iTunes account.

Because it's available as an app, this version of the Bluebook gets you easy access to the book's contents.  Searches are quick, and it should be easy to get to find what you need. Following is a view of the search results for "parallel citation" with the iPhone and iPad results shown together. Text in the iPhone display is understandably truncated, but it shows rule number or bluepage reference.  By comparison, the web-based version of the Bluebook lets you sort search results by table, rules, bluepages and personal notes.  Both are pretty easy to scan.

In terms of pricing, the Bluebook app cost is comparable to the other electronic version.  For $40, you get the 19th edition to keep. By comparison, current price for the other version is: $32 for 1 year, $42 for 2 and $50 for 3 years. On that system, you get access to the 18th and 19th edition, and there are differences to the way materials are browsed and searched. In print, it costs around $34.

The app version is very useful, but there are a few small features not yet fully implemeted. Though you can highlight text, you cannot copy and paste it yet.  The app designer says that this feature is expected in an update soon. This will be especially helpful if you use this app platform for other content, such as court rules.

One quirk to the rulebook app is that moving from section to section isn't a smooth reading experience, like you find in a Kindle or iBooks.  Sometimes it works to browse from one section to the next, but the app is a bit finicky right now. Admittedly, the Bluebook isn't exactly a "pager turner" kind of publication, so this is probably okay.   Also, this might be something addressed in a future update to the rulebook app.

If you use an iPhone or iPad and have to reference the Bluebook, consider this app as an option.  To explore the rulebook app platform before buying, you can dowload the free app and get a version of the Federal Rules of Evidence for free to try the platform.

Georgetown Law students are reminded that we've got a comprehensive Bluebook Guide to help understand many of the features of this citation resource.