Skip to Main Content

Federal Tax: Legislative History

Resources available for legislative history of federal tax.

Compiled Legislative History

A compiled legislative history gathers pertinent legislative information and/or documents for a particular law or area of legislation. A number of compiled legislative histories are focused on federal tax law.

Online Sources

HeinOnline: Taxation & Economic Reform in America Parts I & II, 1781-2010

This historical archive contains thousands of volumes and millions of pages of legislative history materials and other documents. It includes the complete Carlton Fox Collection, which contains nearly 42 years of historical legislation related to the internal revenue laws from 1909-1950. It also includes more than 100 other legislative histories related to taxation, economic reform, and stimulus plans.

ProQuest Congressional: Legislative Insight

Search for a particular act to see the legislative history. This database includes the Public Law, all versions of enacted and related bills, Congressional Record excerpts, and committee hearings, reports, and documents. Other full-text publication types included in the legislative histories to provide users with background material are committee prints, CRS reports, and miscellaneous congressional publications. Presidential signing statements are also included.

ProQuest Congressional: Legislative Histories

This database allows you to search by keyword, and narrow your search down to a particular Congress. Provides detailed information about the bill, history, reports, hearings, and related news. 

Westlaw: Federal Tax Legislative History

Congressional committee reports setting out the legislative history of tax-related public laws as reprinted in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News from 1948 through 1989. From 1990 forward, the database contains all congressional committee reports, including reports on bills that did not become law. Presidential signing statements, issued at the time the president signed a bill into law, are also included.