AC566 · Unit 3

AC566 Unit 3 citator exercise example

Tax Research and Intro to International Taxation Purdue University Global Free custom sample in 24 to 48h

A composite traveling physical therapist treats patients at four facilities, runs her billing from a spare bedroom, and has found an old Supreme Court case that seems to deny her a home office. Unit 3 of AC566 usually asks whether a decision like that still governs, and this citator exercise follows Commissioner v. Soliman from 1993 to the statute that overtook it.

What this page holds

Good law in 1993, superseded by a 1997 amendment: AC566's third-unit citator exercise traces Soliman's history and treatment before a traveling therapist relies on anything. Searches like "ac 566 unit 3 assignment example", "ac566 unit 3 sample" and "ac566 unit 3 example" land here.

What a finished AC566 Unit 3 citator exercise looks like

A three-part workpaper with the citator's results rendered as short tables. Part one records the direct history: the Tax Court's decision for the taxpayer, affirmance by the Fourth Circuit, and reversal by the Supreme Court in 1993, which held that administrative work at home did not make it the principal place of business when treatment happened elsewhere. Part two records treatment. The citator flags the holding as superseded by statute, and the workpaper confirms the flag at its source: the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 amended Section 280A(c)(1), for tax years beginning after 1998, so administrative or management activities can qualify a home office when no other fixed location is used for them. Part three lists later cases citing Soliman and notes which relied on the amended text.

How a AC566 Unit 3 example is structured

History and treatment are kept apart, because a citator reports both and they answer different questions. History asks what happened to this case on appeal; treatment asks what later authorities did with it. Each result is paraphrased in the writer's words with the citator's flag noted, and no flag is accepted on its own: the paper opens the amended statute and quotes the operative clause, since a symbol is a pointer, not an authority. One section explains why the therapist's facts now fall under the statute rather than the case, provided no other fixed location is used for her billing. The last section records the search itself: the date it was run, the service used, the filters applied to the home-office headnotes, and a note that the decision's comparative test still guides cases the amendment does not reach. A single status sentence concludes.

Direct history, in order

Trial court, circuit affirmance and Supreme Court reversal are listed with courts and years, so the path to the 1993 holding is visible at a glance.

A flag checked at its source

The superseded-by-statute signal leads the writer to Section 280A(c)(1) as amended in 1997, and the new clause is quoted rather than assumed.

Why the therapist's facts moved

Billing and scheduling at home, with no other fixed location used for that work, now fit the statutory exception the Court never had before it.

Where the old test survives

For taxpayers outside the amendment, the relative importance and time comparisons from Soliman still frame the analysis, and the workpaper says so.

The search documented

Date run, citator name, headnote filters and the number of citing references reviewed are recorded, so another reader could repeat the check.

Where marks go in AC566 Unit 3

Understanding what a flag means, rather than reporting it, accounts for most of the credit in a citator exercise. The most frequent weakness is noting a red or yellow signal and stopping, without reading the authority that triggered it. Confusing history with treatment runs close behind: listing the Fourth Circuit's affirmance as though it were later negative treatment rather than part of the case's own path. Some papers conclude that Soliman was overruled, which misstates what happened, since Congress changed the statute and no court reversed the Supreme Court. Others miss the effective date and apply the amendment to years before 1999. A workpaper that records no search date cannot show the status was current. Results pasted verbatim from the service demonstrate access rather than analysis, and a conclusion that never returns to the therapist leaves the exercise unfinished.

Get a AC566 Unit 3 example written to your instructions

For Unit 3, name the decision or ruling to verify, any client facts and the citator your course uses, and attach your rubric. The workpaper separates history from treatment, checks each flag against the authority behind it and records the search itself. Allow 24-48h; nothing is charged for the first sample.

AC566 Unit 3 questions, answered

Is superseded by statute the same as overruled?

No. A case is overruled when a court with authority over the one that decided it rejects the holding. Superseded by statute means the legislature changed the rule the case interpreted, so the holding no longer governs facts under the new text. Soliman was never overruled; it was superseded for the years the 1997 amendment covers, and the example uses that exact vocabulary throughout.

Which citator does the example use?

It describes the workflow common to the major services, Shepard's, KeyCite and the tax-specific citators inside research databases, without depending on any one of them. Flags and symbols differ between services, so the example translates each into plain words. If your course requires a particular service and screenshots, the workpaper can be rebuilt around that service's display and terminology.

Why check the amendment's effective date?

Because a citator's flag says the rule changed, not when. The 1997 amendment applies to tax years beginning after December 31, 1998, so a client asking about an earlier year would still face the Soliman test. The example records that date beside the flag and states which of the therapist's years the analysis covers, which a grader treats as part of verifying currency.