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Title 26 - Code of Federal Regulations
Browse or download the United States income tax regulations

Did you know that a complete copy of US tax regulations is not available from the Government Printing Office (GPO) website? Either files are missing or links are broken in every year officially published.

Here, we've created a complete digital copy of 26 CFR by using the most recent years available from the GPO, and this copy includes all Text links and files (all regulations), intact. In order to search all of 26 CFR, and to search using a local computer while offline, we've compiled 26 CFR - The Repaired Edition.

Browse 26 CFR
We do not sell anything. 26 CFR is presented here as a complete duplicate of the GPO's 26 CFR website (2004)*.

What's in the rulebook?
Visit http://WhatisTaxed.com

Download 26 CFR
26 CFR can also be downloaded to a folder on your computer. Then you can use the built-in search function of your operating system to find specific tax codes (see How to Search**).

All regulations will easily fit on a CD, or 128MB USB pocket drive. There are other tools and methods that can be used for searching, but the methods described here utilize the most commonly available tool, the MS Windows Computer Operating System.

Source: If you wish to compile your own digital copy of tax regulations, the official government website that publishes tax rules is http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html. Their unofficial website is ecfr.gpoaccess.gov

TITLE 26 - CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS - Repaired Edition

currently 2004 tax regulations

Or Download CFR Repaired (if you haven't already, you'll see this page again, then click browse above)

Original Source: Government Printing Office (GPO)

Warning: At times you should examine the web address in your web browser, because while...
*Browsing: The PDF links, and Back button links will go to the GPO. To remain on this complete copy of the 26CFR, do not use PDF links, and use your browsers back button instead.
*Downloading: If you've downloaded this TEXT version, you can be certain to remain on your local machine if you close your Internet connection while searching.

Or Download a PDF copy of the official 26CFR, if you want to search PDF files. It was compiled from the individual volumes. If you want to compile your own PDF version from the GPO website, you should be able to locate whole PDFs of each volume. You can then use a PDF writer to combine the volumes into one PDF file. It's easier to search, but searching the TEXT version is more powerful.

See How to Search** in order to "text data mine" your own copy of the CFR website, on your computer.

Note: You do NOT need to download anything in order to search. You can use the unofficial GPO ecfr, their great search tool is usually very fast. You can try looking up a few of these Income Tax codes and instructions.

Verify regulations by comparing results from the GPO's ecfr, and by using link checkers, Windows thumbnail view, and other tools including a Linux OS. [Damn Small Linux, as a Live CD is a good tool if you want to use grep, etc, in Linux, but don't want to install Linux (type: dsl toram at startup to run on RAM)].

An Open Source freeware tool called WinHTTrack Website Copier was used to make this copy of 26 CFR. All files are unaltered from the original regulations, with one exception, which is a file the GPO did not have available for any given year and so was copied from the ecfr. See Known Errors.

Other sources for a digital Code of Federal Regulations include: www.env-sol.com/Solutions/CFR.html and www.smartpdf.com/50CFRs/index.html (but, we haven't tried either).

* Known Errors - that are found on the Governments official CFR website, but repaired by us on this copy
[the errors are different for every published year, but we only keep up with (or list) current year errors]

• Secs. 1-60 are composed of 2003 regulations, due to missing sections of 2004 files on the official Government Printing Office website.
  
  
• Parts 500-599 are composed of year 2000 regulations, because they too, are the most current official copies available from the GPO.
  
  
• Part 16A is not available for year 2004 and so year 2003 was substituted.
  
  
• Part/sec. 31.6011(a)-10, is copied from the GPO's Electronic Code of Federal Regulations website and is not considered an official copy by the GPO. It is unavailable on their official website, for any year. This is the only copy of the regulation currently provided by the GPO online.


• Other repairs were made for "file not found" files, etc. Search this term to find them. See Verified***.

The GPO itself uses the above repair methods, and still none of the regulations they have available online are complete for any published year.

** How to Search - In general, to perform "text data mining" on this copy of 26 CFR:
[ These instructions are for Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP. For Linux, use command line options, "grep", etc, and your favorite tools. If you are new to Linux, read some of these tutorials, but don't despair, you has the best search tool around. Before searching, see Verified below ]

1. Copy the contents of the zip file (or CD) to a folder on your computer.
2. Open the folder and open the built-in window Search function.
3. Enter the text you want to search for in the TEXT BOX. For example, "how to determine taxable income".
4. Click Search Now. It will show (1 file(s) found).
5. Open the result in a web browser.
6. Search for "how to" within the browser text, using EDIT > FIND from the menu, or Ctrl+F.

Note: Some of the links go to the GPO website. You may want to disconnect your Internet connection to ensure you remain on your local computer.

[ More information about "How to Search" or downloading the Regulations can be found at http://WhatisTaxed.com ]

An average computer and a high speed internet connection can be used to duplicate this copy, however the GPO website makes it difficult to accomplish the task. Some of the sections are not available on the GPO website for the current year and so, had to be copied from a previous year. Some of their most current regulations are from the year 2000. The GPO website contains errors, which were corrected on this copy. The few older regs that were used from 2000/2003 can be compared to those found on the unofficial Electronic Code of Federal Regulations.

Any Section or Part that is from a previous year has the original citation information and will show the date in the starting text. All files are unaltered copies of the officially published regulations.

*** VERIFIED
This copy of the 26 CFR website has been verified to be complete for 2004. Please reconfirm yourself, for your own piece of mind. In general, in order to verify this copy, or your own compilation, two items must be examined, links and files:

Links
Verification can be done with freeware tools for Link Checking or you can use Macromedia Dreamweaver, which was used to verify this copy. Xenu's Link Sleuth is one of the better freeware link checkers. One or two errors were allowed to remain, for different reasons, mainly because they are mistakes on the part of the GPO website that become bothersome if file updates are performed. For example, a file named joel seems to be trash that maybe someone named joel left on the officially published copy of the CFR. Just follow the error link address and you'll see it is unimportant. After verifying the links, the files must also be verified, because they may contain "File Not Found" error pages or other junk, instead of an actual regulation file.

Files
To verify the files, open each folder and subfolder and choose the Thumbnails view (View > Thumbnails) to visually confirm each HTML file. If you plan to downloaded the entire website from the GPO, you will find "file not found" webpages (not on our Repaired Edition, they've already been deleted). Determine which file or page is linked to it before deleting the "file not found" page, then download the correct page, from another year (if necessary), and save it to the correct location to repair the link. The GPO website has many errors in every available year of the online CFRs they publish. For example, some of their Contents pages have duplicate links, or links on Back buttons that point to a different year, missing pages, etc. We would not be surprised to find that they have omitted a regulation (with duplication of another, etc) or pointed their own links to the wrong regs. This copy is more complete than the officially published CFR, because we have repaired the missing citations, that the Government (GPO) provides online, by using the next year available regs.

If you find a link that points to the wrong citation, please report it to us, so that we can further repair the officially published copy - http://whatistaxed.com

If enough people write to the GPO to tell them how important it is to have the links fixed, maybe they will fix them. Contact the GPO Access User Support Team: gpoaccess@gpo.gov

This copy does not include the Adobe Acrobat PDF files, only the text (HTML) files. Be aware that many of the links, like the PDF and Back button links, go directly to the GPO. So, if you are connected to the internet when browsing a download copy, or you happen to be on our live copy, you may find yourself on the GPO website eventually. Be aware, the search function on the CFR-Repaired Edition website homepage will go to the GPO servers, as the original GPO site. It may be necessary at times to disconnect your Internet connection to ensure you remain on your local computer.

-------- This is not copyrighted. Copy all you wish.
-------- http://WhatisTaxed.com