The five best tax books for taxpayers cover up to date, and pertinent tax concepts while also providing insight and useful knowledge regarding tax filing, planning and strategy. No one tax book may provide all the information a taxpayer needs in their quest for tax answers, however the five best tax books for taxpayers do individually and collectively cover a vast amount of tax information ranging from basic income assessment to taxation of mixed personal and business expenditures.
It is also important to realize tax laws can change often and that the tax code from one year may not apply in its entirety to current tax years. For this reason, it is a good idea to double check the application of tax concepts from these books with the Internal Revenue Service or a tax professional. International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) can vary by edition and version of tax books for the same tax year. The following five tax books are considered the best because of their professional, knowledge based and informative approaches to tax matters.
“Federal Income Taxation,11th Edition”
Marvin A. Chirelstein
Foundation Press, Thomson West
New York, New York 2009
ISBN 978-1-599-41403-4
An excellent resource on in depth tax concepts and principles, “Federal Income Taxation” covers a wide range of individual income tax issues such as recovery of capital investment, cancellation of indebtedness, extensive deduction, attribution of income, and more. This is one of the five best tax books for taxpayers because it is well rated by readers, comprehensive and updated often.
“Federal Income Tax: Examples and Explanations 5th edition”
Joseph Bankman, T.D. Griffith and Katherine Pratt
Aspen Publishers
New York, New York 2008
ISBN: 978-0-735-56533-3
This book is written by three law professors from Stanford, University of Southern California and Loyola law schools. There are multiple editions of this book and topics include timing, deductions, income shifting and capital gains and losses. This book is intended as a student textbook that follows a question and answer approach to tax concepts. Details about ‘Federal Income Tax: Examples and Explanations’ can be found at the Aspen publishers website.
“1040 Forms and Instructions”
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
U.S. Department of the Treasury
http://www.irs.gov
The 1040 Form and Instructions book provides guidelines for a number of forms, schedules, requirements and worksheet requirements for individual tax filers. This book is usually published and available for free to tax payers on an annual basis. For tax payers planning on using multiple forms and schedules, this book is a useful resource and guide. A copy of the 2009 1040 Forms and Instructions is available for free online.
“Americas Best Tax Strategies”
Stephen D. Kirkland
Xlibris Corporation
ISBN 1-4134-6978-7
For a more toned down, less formal and easier to understand approach to understanding personal income taxes while also learning about tax planning and techniques, ‘Americas Best Tax Strategies: Legitimate Ways to Save Income Taxes Now’ is a good choice. This book is one of the five best tax books for taxpayers because a large part of it is dedicated to explaining tax strategies. The 2004 edition of this tax book is available on Google books for free.
“Federal Taxation: Individual Income Taxes”
William Hoffman, James E. Smith and Eugene Willis
Thompson SouthWestern
Mason, Ohio 2010, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-538-78624-9
A new edition of this book has been released every tax year for several years and this book is available digitally, in hardcover and paperback. Older, paper back and digital editions are usually less expensive especially when purchased used. Older versions provide much of the same information excluding recent updates. The 2008 version of this book is also available for free on Google Books.
If the above five books for tax payers aren’t the best in your mind consider reading Title 26 of the U.S. Code. Title 26 contains the codified statutory tax law and constitutes a primary source of legislative tax requirements for cross referencing and additional information. The Internal Revenue Service also provides extensive information on tax code, tax regulations and guidance which may be helpful when filling in tax information blanks and confirming the validity of tax strategies.