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How to Deal with the BEST SLOB
or H.E.L.P. if You're Drowning in a Sea of Tax Acronyms and Abbreviations
by Adrienne Eng – Tax Analysts

A practitioner recently complained that the use of acronyms caused her to miss out on an entire tax discussion. She was not familiar with the acronym used in the discussion.

When new regulations and public laws are written, new legal phrases become part of the tax lexicon, and these long phrases get quickly shortened. How are librarians supposed to find the time to keep up with new tax acronyms and abbreviations, the best tax sites, the latest changes on the Web, new tax treatises, the latest theory on library management, the best local document delivery service, etc., in their already-too-busy day? If you are awash in tax terms, how do you keep from drowning?

If you and your practitioners encounter a tax acronym or abbreviation that is too new to find in a legal dictionary, you can search one of the electronic tax news files, such as Tax Analysts' Tax Notes Today or BNA's Daily Tax Report, to find its meaning.

If you're trying to figure out what an unfamiliar acronym stands for, enter the acronym without periods, and you should find some documents that contain the acronym and an explanation of it. Note: This search technique may turn up too many hits if your acronym is a stop word (e.g., NOW), or a common word (e.g., SIMPLE). If this is the case, enter additional terms that you may have heard in the context of the acronym, and rerun the search. For example, add "savings plan" to the SIMPLE search above. The additional search terms should yield a more manageable number of results. Also, keep in mind that some acronyms have multiple meanings; for example, both the American Bankers Association and the American Bar Association use ABA.

If you use this technique, you'll have no trouble helping a patron find all cases dealing with a BEST PAL with a TIN QTIP and a SIMPLE LUST.

Here's a list of some common tax abbreviations and acronyms and some recently created ones culled from the headlines of the Tax Notes Today file.

ACE	adjusted current earnings
AMT	alternative minimum tax
APA	advance pricing agreement
BEST	Businesses Educating Students in Technology Act
CCF	Capital Construction Fund
CFC	controlled foreign corporation
CFP	controlled foreign partnership
COBRA	Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
CEP	Coordinated Examination Program
COLA	cost-of-living adjustment
DISC	domestic international sales corporation
EIN	employee identification number
FARRM	Farm and Ranch Risk Management account
FASIT	Financial Asset Securitization Investment Trust
FIRPTA	Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act of 1980
FOIA	Freedom of Information Act
FPHC	foreign personal holding company
GSTT	generation-skipping transfer tax
Health C.A.R.E.	Health Coverage, Access, Relief, & Equity Act
IDA	Individual Development Account
LLC	limited liability company
LLP	limited liability partnership
LUST	leaking underground storage tank
MEWA	multiple employer welfare arrangement
MSA	medical savings account
MTC	Multistate Tax Commission
NGO	non-governmental organization
OBRA	Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
PAL	passive activity loss
QDRO	qualified domestic relations order
QEF	qualified electing fund
QTIP	qualified terminable interest property
SAVE	Savings Advancement and Enhancement Act
SIMPLE	Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees
SLOB	separate line of business
SRLY	separate return limitation year
STABLE	initiative staffing tax administration balance and equity initiative
TCMP	Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program
TIN	taxpayer identification number
UNICAP	uniform capitalization rules
VEBA	voluntary employees' beneficiary association

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Special Libraries Association, Legal Division