TR RIA Kills Checkpoint's Tax Alerts

Hat tip to LLB co-editor Mark Giangrande for the tip. Here's the announcement, followed by my explanation why I didn't get one:

Dear Valued Tax Alerts Subscriber:

We take pride in delivering intelligent and innovative products that meet the ever-changing needs of our customers. Helping you work faster, smarter, and with greater profitability is what we're all about.

A few years ago, we added the Tax Alerts service to your current subscription at no additional charge to you. Recently, we made a decision to discontinue the Tax Alerts service.

Here's our plan for the discontinuation of this service:

We will continue to publish new federal and state Tax Alerts developments until December 31, 2010.
 
After December 31, 2010, we will no longer update the Tax Alerts service. We will, however, continue to offer you access to the Tax Alerts database on Checkpoint until May 31, 2011.

After May 31, 2011, the Tax Alerts service will be removed from Checkpoint and you will no longer have access to the service, including its archives.

If you have any questions, please contact your local Account Manager. (Check this site for a listing of Account Managers: http://ria.thomsonreuters.com/replocator.)

As always, we appreciate your business, and we wish you success throughout 2010 and beyond.

Sincerely,

[name deleted]
Senior Product Manager - Tax Alerts

No comment of what "no additional charge to you" means in TR-speak.

Score One for BNA and CCH. Oh, that's OK if Tax Alerts is history. I killed all of Checkpoint when it came up for renewal recently. At $13K per year for our very selective Checkpoint resources, it just wasn't worth it. You might say this is an illustration of feasting on the TR carcass. You might say that $13K would be better spent on BNA and CCH online tax resources. You also might say it is damn hard to compete with BNA's Daily Tax Report even if something like Checkpoint's "Tax Alerts" is offered at no additional charge to your Checkpoint subscription.

TR's Warren, Gorham & Lamont Brand for Tax Publications. I still have some Warren, Gorham & Lamont tax titles in print. WG&L, as folks may recall, was (1) acquired by Thomson in 1980 and (2) the tax publishing activities of WG&L were merged with RIA in 1996. This brand somehow has found a way to survive in the TR empire by continuing to publish high quality works. Very rare. Perhaps that's because WG&L is part of the tax and accounting segment of TR's Professional Division, not TR Legal. I plan to keep the titles as long as they are used, remain, relatively speaking, reasonably priced for print continuation, and continue to maintain the standard of quality we expect from WG&L for tax publications.

BNA's New Premier State Tax Library. BTW, you might want to contact your BNA rep because the Company has developed a new state tax library. Download BNA's Premier State Tax Library Brochure. Note to FTC, no free review provided, but I'm interested. [JH]