In addition to publicly available primary resources, as a USD law student you have access to several commercial research databases through the Legal Research Center.
Lexis+ and Westlaw Precision both host vast amounts of tax law material and practice resources, including primary and secondary sources. Some highlights from Lexis include its access to Matthew Bender practice guides (e.g. Bender's State Taxation: Principles and Practice) and tax news and analysis from Law360. Westlaw's resources include a robust Research Institute of America (RIA) California tax collection and Hellerstein & Hellerstein's State Taxation treatise from its Warren Gorham & Lamont (WG&L) collection.
The LRC also provides access to several other important tax-specific commercial databases and practice centers.
VitalLaw
Wolters Kluwer makes its federal and state tax content (including material previously available on CCH Intelliconnect) to its newest platform, VitalLaw (formerly known as Cheetah).
VitalLaw features a robust collection of primary sources, legislative updates and analysis, and practice guides covering federal and state tax law, international tax law, accounting and auditing, and financial and estate planning. The California State Tax Reporter highlights laws, regulations, case rulings, annotations, and practice guides on a wide range of tax subjects including personal and corporate income, unemployment compensation, estates and inheritance, public utilities and transportation, and more.
The database also aggregates federal and state tax news—users can browse daily headlines or subscribe to favorite journals and newsletters.
Bloomberg Tax
Bloomberg Tax includes a wide array of useful practice tools and resources in one place, easily searchable by practice area or jurisdiction. State tax law features include primary sources and state tax forms, Daily Tax Report and analysis, a sales and use tax rate finder, and interactive state tax chart builders. Results can be limited to California-specific materials by selecting California in the “Select a jurisdiction” menu. Also allows searching for state documents directly by citation.
Bloomberg Tax also offers a collection of State Tax Navigator annotated guides dedicated to topics like corporate income tax, pass-through entities, property tax, and sales and use tax (see e.g. California tax navigators under “California Expert Analysis” on the California page). Navigators provide expert analysis and explanations of current tax laws and practices and include citations to the California Revenue and Tax Code and other relevant administrative literature.
Tax Notes
Tax Notes is a collection of news and analysis publications produced by non-profit tax publishing company Tax Analysts. In addition to news and reports divided by jurisdiction (including California state tax news), Tax Notes also allows users to browse and create alerts on an exhaustive range of tax topics including (but not limited to):
In addition to news and analysis, Tax Notes is also a resource for relevant tax policy publications including congressional joint committee prints, IRS filings such as letter rulings, memoranda, and proposed and final IRS regulations, and proposed and final state administrative regulations. Frequently-used searches can be saved and bookmarks can be added to a library of favorites.
To access Tax Notes, new users must create an account while connected to the campus network: click the "Sign In" link on the main Tax Notes webpage and then click the "Register Here" link (or go directly to the registration page—again you must be on campus for this link to work). Once you've created an account, you will not need to be on campus to access Tax Notes.