2
ACCESSING TAXFIND ONLINE (TFO)
Go to the Canadian Tax Foundation website (www.ctf.ca) and log on. Logging on will authenticate you and
allow you access to TFO providing your subscription is up‐to‐date. Once you have logged on, you will land on
your “My Profile” page.
Tip: check the “keep me logged on” box when logging on
If you cannot log on, or cannot access TaxFind Online after logging on, contact Feizan Chaudhry at
[email protected], or 416‐599‐0283, ext. 219.
If you have questions about using TaxFind Online or would like to provide feedback, email Susan
Wong at [email protected].
1) Go to the “TaxFind Online” dropdown menu* and select “Search TaxFind Online”.
* TaxFind Online can also be accessed from links on the bottom of the home page (see below)
as well as on the left side panel on all pages other than the home page.
3
2) You will land on the default search template.
At any time, you can return to the CTF website by clicking on the logo or the “CTF FCF”
button on the menu bar.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
1. Setting your options
On the right end of the menu bar, there is an “Options” button. Here users can customize the default
settings to their preferences.
4
2. What constitutes a record in TFO?
In TaxFind Online (TFO), a record is a section of an article segmented by headings. Therefore, a record
can range in size from a paragraph to several pages.
When TFO was first launched, a record was the entire article. With the most recent set of
enhancements, we changed the size of the record to a section of an article. This was done so
users could approximate a proximity search between two phrases. (“Approximate” because
the record can range in size from a paragraph to several pages.)
Proximity searching between two phrases
The software running TFO is NXT. NXT does not support proximity searching between two
phrases. To work around this, we changed the size of the record from entire articles to article
sections. Users enter the two phrases in quotation marks into the search box without the
proximity operator and the results will display records that contain both phrases.
Note: Proximity searching for “words” is supported.
SEARCH TEMPLATES
On the default screen, there are three TFO search template options—Custom Search, Boolean
Search and Directed Search.
1) The custom search was created to allow users to quickly narrow their search to specific
year(s), publication(s), author(s), as well as title and “word” proximity.
a. To select more than 1 publication, hold down the “CTRL” key while selecting publications.
b. Boolean operators can be used on the Custom Search.
5
2) Boolean operators are illustrated below and on the Boolean search template for quick
access.
3) The Directed Search allows users to narrow their search by checking boxes on the table of
contents and filling out a directed form. (see below)
6
**IMPORTANT NOTE** After conducting a search and before moving on to a new search, you must click
“clear search” and “clear query” to avoid error messages or inaccurate search results.
* * * * * *
The fourth template is the Taxnet Pro PLUS option. This search is a bridge template that was created by
Thomson Reuters and allows users to search both TFO and Taxnet Pro PLUS at the same time. Users who
select this template must have a subscription to Taxnet Pro PLUS.
LINKING TO OTHER SITES
In articles where there are references to the Income Tax Act, TFO links to the following sites:
1) Wolters Kluwer’s Intelliconnect
2) Thomson Reuters’ Taxnet Pro
3) CPA Canada’s Knotia
Note: Users will need to subscribe to these other sites in order to activate these links.
7
VIEW RESULTS OF YOUR SEARCH
“Results” View
The “Results” view is the default view. This displays the hitlist in the main window, with the Table of Contents
in the left navigation window.
In the above example, assume you searched “contingent interest” and these are the search results. There are
170 results.
1) If you want to narrow your search, you can add an extra term into the “add search term” box and click
“add” to rerun your search including this term.
2) You can print the hitlist.
3) Your results are sorted by “year”, you can change your search to sort the results by “relevance”
4) You can choose the display size of your excerpts (short, medium, long)
The yellow page icon indicates that the hit is an article such as a newsletter article.
The blue page icon indicates that the hit is in a section of an article. If the hits are in a section of an article,
the title of the article is included along with the section heading.
Title > Section heading
Example:
Estate and Tax Planning in Complex Family Situations > B. Parent’s Discretionary Trust Interests
In the results above, results 4 & 5 are from the same paper, different sections. The more sections in an article
with hits, the more times the article will appear in the results list.
8
“Document Results” View
If the preference is to view the document in the main window with the table of contents and the hitlist in the
left navigation window, click “Document Results” from the main menu after initiating a search.
9
If you click on an instance of “contingent interest” from the hitlist, you see the following screen:
(Note the options that now appear below the main menu bar.)
Using the above article as an example,
1) The hit highlighted in yellow is the current hit, clicking “Next Hit” will move the yellow highlighting to the next
hit.
2) As you move through the hits using the “Next Hit” button, the Table of Contents will move to the new location.
3) The “reference line” gives me a snapshot of where the article came from. In this case it is the 2011 Conference
Report, paper 27, page 17/18, the title and author of the paper.
To toggle the reference line “on” and “off”, click on
4) To have the footnotes display at the bottom of the article for viewing, click (Note: the footnotes are
embedded in popups by default for document viewing.)
5) If you want to capture an excerpt, block the text you want to capture (include the reference line if you need the
page number for citing) and click “Select Text”. This will add the excerpt to the clipboard along with the
footnotes, author information and bibliography information.
6) If you want to capture a document, click “Tag doc” and the document you are viewing will be added to the
clipboard.
10
Working with the clipboard
“View Text” view
The clipboard allows you to capture both excerpts and documents to one location and is where you can review and
save your research. Click on “Clipboard” from the menu bar.
The clipboard defaults to the excerpts view (“View Text”).
(If you are working with documents exclusively, click “View Tagged Docs” to see all the documents you would
have tagged during your research.)
Using “select text” copies the excerpt to the clipboard and includes the bibliography and author
information as well as the footnotes. Note that third party ITA link icons do not appear here.
The hits are highlighted for your reference but once you have added all your excerpts you can click
“toggle hits” to remove the highlighted search terms.
If you have multiple excerpts and want to remove one or more, check the box to the left of the excerpt
and click “delete” to remove
Clicking “clear” will clear all excerpts.
When your selections are final, you can “print”, “save”, or “email” the entire list.
11
“View Tagged Doc” view
If you have added documents to the Clipboard, click “View Tagged Docs” when you go to the clipboard and you will
see the following screen:
During a research session, you may have multiple articles displayed on the clipboard. Using the checkbox, you can
print, save, or email multiple articles.
Saving a search
If you want to redo the identical search another day, you can save your search. Scroll down to the bottom of
the results screen and input a name for your search.
12
Once you have saved a search, you will be able to retrieve it from the custom search screen:
To delete a search, go to “manage saved searches” on the results screen.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS?
Q. I prefer the FolioViews DVD version of TaxFind. Can I just subscribe to the DVD version?
A. Your subscription is for the online version, TaxFind Online. The DVD version is provided as a backup for
use when the site may be down.
Q. How often is TaxFind Online updated?
A. TaxFind Online is updated monthly. (The backup DVD is updated annually)
We continue to encourage your feedback. If you have any questions or comments, please contact Susan Wong