Navigating the Virginia Tax Policy Library

The Virginia Tax Policy Library is a web enabled application to store and access Virginia tax related policy documents. Information is grouped into categories to help you browse through policy documents. In addition, the application provides quick and advanced searching functions to help you easily locate policy documents.

Table of Contents

Browser Requirements


Virginia Tax Policy Document Types

Search the Library


Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Category

Links to Other Web Sites


Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Document Type

What's New Function


Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Tax Type

Contents of a Policy Document


Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Number



Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Topic

Browser Requirements

To browse the Virginia Tax Policy Library appropriately from the Internet, you need to have Netscape 4.0, Internet Explorer 4.0, AOL 4.0, or above versions. You can download the latest versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer from the following web sites:


In addition, you must enable your browser to run Java and JavaScript. (Click to view instructions to check or enable Java and JavaScript from browsers)

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Search the Library

The policy library has two search functions - Quick Search and Advanced Search.

Quick Search is a short cut to find policy documents simply by typing in any key word(s) in the Quick Search form, and clicking the Search button. Quick Search will show you all of the documents in the library that contain the word (or at least one of the words if you have entered more than one word) you entered into the Quick Search form.

Advanced Search allows you to write more complicated search queries. You can narrow down your search results by selecting specific document types, tax types, etc. You can also control the number of results being presented at a time and the order in which the search results are sorted. It is a more powerful search agent designed to help you find answers to your tax policy questions.

For more information on searching, please see Searching for Documents.

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Links to Other Web Sites

In order to help you get and access as much useful information as possible, the policy library has links to several useful, related web sites. On the top of the right side of the screen, there are links to other parts of the Virginia Tax Web Page. These links are listed below:


By clicking any of these links, the web page for that link will open. You can use "Back" to go back to the Virginia Tax Policy Library web page.

At the bottom of the left-hand side of the screen, there are links to other Federal and Virginia state government websites. These links are listed below:


By clicking any of these links, the web page for that link will open in a separate window. You can switch back and forth between the Virginia Tax Policy Library and those open windows, or have both windows open on your screen at the same time. You can close these windows, but still have the Virginia Tax Policy Library window open.

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What's New Function

This function groups and presents Virginia tax policy documents issued, updated, or added within the last 30 days. When you first login to the application, there is a "What's New" link at the bottom of the Welcome Page. In addition, there is a "What's New" button on the menu on the left-hand side of the screen. You can click either place at any time to open the "What's New" window to see the latest changes to the Library.

If there are any newly issued policy documents, updated policy documents, or policy documents that have been issued or updated more than 30 days ago but have just added to the Policy Library in the last 30 days, the following three categories will be displayed in the "What's New" window:


When you click the blue triangle () next to the category, the policy documents will appear below the category, listed by document type, document number, and a brief description. Click the blue triangle () again and all of the policy documents will be collapsed into the category. If you click the document type (appears underlined) for the document you wish to read, that document will open on the right-hand side of the window.

If there are no policy documents issued, updated, or added to the Policy Library within the last 30 days, none of the categories will appear in the window.

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Contents of a Policy Document

All Virginia Tax Policy Documents share a standard format.


Some fields listed above may not contain data. Tax types, topics, and related documents are fields that may have more than one value. Multiple values are separated by a ";".

When viewing the document body, you may notice pictures such as appearing at various times. This picture denotes a link to another document in the policy library. Clicking on this link will automatically take you to the referenced document.

Some policy documents will list related documents. These documents may be explicitly referenced in the body of the policy document or, if not explicitly referenced, may have provided additional information to the policy analyst who has written the document. If you click the Related Policy Documents button, a list of related policy documents will be displayed.

Related documents are listed by document number, document issue date, and a brief description. You can click the document number, which will automatically take you to the related document.

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Virginia Tax Policy Document Types

The Library only stores Virginia tax related policy documents. Those documents include:



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Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Categories

The application indexes, and then classifies Virginia tax policy documents into categories according to document type, tax type, and topics. You may browse policy documents in different categories by clicking on a category name from the left-hand side of the window. Category details and policy documents will be presented on the right-hand side of the window. There are "Next" and "Previous" buttons at the bottom of the window to assist you in navigating through pages of the documents.

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Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Document Type

This category groups Virginia Tax Policy Documents based on Document Types.

By clicking this category, the six basic document types are displayed on the right-hand side of the window. You can expand the document type that you are interested in by clicking the blue triangle ().

The secondary level of the category is grouped by title and section number, or year as appropriate for the document. Click the blue triangle () of the secondary group to see a listing of policy documents under the selected title and section, or year issued, sorted and listed based on the policy document numbers.

You can look through policy documents by number, date, and a brief description, and then select the one that you are interested in.

To open the selected policy document, click the policy document number.

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Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Tax Type

This category groups Virginia Tax Policy Documents based on Virginia Tax Types such as Individual Income Tax and Virginia Soybean Excise Tax. The "All Tax Types" on the left-hand side of the window groups and lists all Virginia tax types alphabetically. By clicking this category, tax types will be presented on the right-hand side of the window.

To quickly access frequently used tax types, the Library provides views for four tax types in addition to the "All Tax Types".

By clicking one of these menu entries, only those documents associated with the tax type selected are presented on the right-hand side of the window.

The secondary level of the category is grouped by Document Types. Clicking on the blue triangle () of the secondary group will expand the list one more level by Topic. You can look through topics and select the topic you are interested in by clicking the blue triangle (). Policy documents classified as the selected topic will be sorted and listed based on the policy document numbers under the third level.

You can look through policy documents by number, date, and a brief description, and then select the one that you are interested in.

To open the selected policy document, you may click the policy document number.

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Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Document Number

If you are seeking a policy document by document number, this view will provide you a short cut to go directly to the document that you are interested in. To use this view efficiently, you need to know the document number. Enter the document number for which you wish to find in the "Find Document Number" field, and then click the Search button or press "Enter" when you are done. The search agent will find the document with the number you entered, or inform you if nothing found. If no document matched your query, please check your number to make sure it is a correct number. Also, please check the number format entered to make sure it is a standard format. Examples of standard document formats are located at the bottom of Quick Search by Number page. If you still get nothing after checking the number and number format, there is no such document in the Library.


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Browse Virginia Tax Policy Documents by Topic

This category groups Virginia tax policy documents based on Topics. A Topic is a key word or subject of the policy document. Documents without any Topics entered are grouped in the "No Topics Specified" category.

By clicking the category, all topics are listed on the right-hand side of the window. You can select the topic that you are interested in by clicking the blue triangle ().

The second level is grouped by Tax Type. Click on the blue triangle () beside the Tax Type you are interested in. The third level is grouped by Document Type. Clicking the blue triangle () beside the Document Type will expand a list of policy documents sorted and listed based on the policy document numbers.

You can look through policy documents by number, date, and a brief description, and then select the one that you are interested in.

To open the selected policy document, you may click the policy document number.

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