Source Materials
Tier-1 source material for the US individual tax-prep world model. Every enshrined rule in the domain must cite one of these sources via its provenance envelope (per ADR-065). The sources are public, freely available on irs.gov, and versioned per tax year.
Alpha publications
Section titled “Alpha publications”Publications whose content is cited by the filing-status + standard-deduction problem spaces — the two spaces in the initial world model.
| Publication | Full title | Primary relevance | Tax year for alpha |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pub 501 | Dependents, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information | Filing status + Standard deduction — both alpha problem spaces are primarily sourced here | TY 2025 |
| Form 1040 Instructions | Instructions for Form 1040 and 1040-SR | Canonical filing-status definitions and the standard-deduction worksheet | TY 2025 |
| Pub 17 | Your Federal Income Tax (For Individuals) | Overarching guide that contextualizes both alpha problem spaces; used for cross-reference and edge-case narrative | TY 2025 |
These three together are sufficient to reach the 50-enshrined-rule floor for the alpha problem spaces. No additional sources are required before alpha declares itself bootstrapped.
Deferred-space publications
Section titled “Deferred-space publications”Publications that become primary sources when a deferred problem space is pulled into scope. Listed here so the operator knows what to ingest when expansion happens.
| Publication | Full title | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Pub 503 | Child and Dependent Care Expenses | Dependent-care credit, dependents problem space |
| Pub 502 | Medical and Dental Expenses | Itemized deductions — medical |
| Pub 526 | Charitable Contributions | Itemized deductions — charitable |
| Pub 936 | Home Mortgage Interest Deduction | Itemized deductions — mortgage interest |
| Pub 334 | Tax Guide for Small Business | Self-employment income (Schedule C) |
| Pub 535 | Business Expenses | Schedule C expense rules |
| Pub 550 | Investment Income and Expenses | Capital gains and losses (Schedule D) |
| Pub 590-A | Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) | Retirement contributions |
| Pub 590-B | Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) | Retirement distributions, RMDs |
| Pub 596 | Earned Income Credit (EIC) | EITC rules |
| Pub 972 (legacy) / Schedule 8812 Instructions | Child Tax Credit / Credit for Other Dependents | CTC, ACTC, ODC |
Schedule-level sources
Section titled “Schedule-level sources”Form-specific instructions that supplement the publications for the relevant schedules.
| Form / schedule | Document | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Schedule A | Schedule A Instructions | Itemized deductions |
| Schedule B | Schedule B Instructions | Interest and ordinary dividends |
| Schedule C | Schedule C Instructions | Profit or loss from business |
| Schedule D | Schedule D Instructions | Capital gains and losses |
| Schedule E | Schedule E Instructions | Supplemental income (rental, royalty, partnership) |
| Schedule SE | Schedule SE Instructions | Self-employment tax |
Source discipline
Section titled “Source discipline”Every enshrined rule cites a source. The provenance envelope for a tax-prep rule is the publication name, the section (or worksheet), and the tax year — for example:
{"publication": "Pub 501", "section": "Filing Status", "revision": "TY 2025"}The tax-prep domain sets the convention for the envelope’s field names (publication,
section, revision); the envelope’s typed shape is owned by the spectral.worlds context
per
ADR-065 D2.
Annual updates are versioning events, not rule edits. When the IRS publishes Pub 501 for a new tax year, the existing rules are not mutated. A new world-model version is published per ADR-026; the new version carries the new amounts, and the prior version remains authoritative for returns in its tax year.
Source-material ingestion runs through the Operations app. The distillation pipeline handles source upload, parsing, provenance anchoring, and candidate drafting. No manual rule authoring against unanchored sources.
Non-IRS references
Section titled “Non-IRS references”Used for cross-reference only — not authoritative for rule authoring. A rule’s provenance envelope never cites these.
- Internal Revenue Code (Title 26) — statutory source. Useful when publications leave ambiguity, but rules should cite the IRS-published interpretation, not the raw statute.
- Treasury Regulations (26 CFR) — regulatory interpretation. Same disposition — cross-reference only.
- IRS Revenue Rulings / Revenue Procedures — narrow authoritative pronouncements. Consulted case-by-case when publications are silent on a specific fact pattern.
Related reading
Section titled “Related reading”- Overview — domain scope
- Problem spaces — which publications feed which problem space
- Rules — rule-coverage state
- ADR-065 — the provenance envelope
- ADR-026 — version-as-authority for annual updates