How we check our pages
Form versions last compared: October 27, 2026
Tax pages are only useful if they are right. These are the rules every page on this site follows.
1. Only official sources
We write from the official text: IRS forms, their instructions and IRS web pages; FinCEN for beneficial ownership (BOI) rules; and, for platform pages, the platform's own help pages. We do not use blogs, forums or other guides as a source. If the official text does not say something, we do not say it either.
2. Every key fact is tied to a line
Deadlines, addresses, fax and phone numbers, dollar amounts and validity periods are stored in one list, each with the official page it comes from, the exact sentence it comes from, the form version and the date we checked it. On the page, each of these facts carries a small tag such as "IRS · checked …" that links to the source. Before an update, a script looks for each of those sentences in a recent saved copy of the official page (never more than a week old). If a sentence is no longer there, the site does not build until we fix the page. Numbers that appear in our text without such a tag are flagged automatically too.
3. Form versions are compared every week
The IRS shows a revision code for each current form on its "About Form" pages. Once a week we compare those codes with the versions our pages were written against, and we re-check the key sentences against fresh copies of the official pages, because an address or fax number can change without a new form version. A change means the pages that use that form are checked again before anything else.
| Form or instructions | Version our pages use |
|---|---|
| Form 1120 | 2025 version |
| Inst 1120 | 2025 version |
| Form 5472 | Rev. December 2023 |
| Inst 5472 | Rev. December 2024 |
| Form 7004 | Rev. December 2025 |
| Inst 7004 | Rev. December 2025 |
| Form SS-4 | Rev. December 2025 |
| Inst SS-4 | Rev. December 2025 |
| Form W-8BEN | Rev. October 2021 |
| Inst W-8BEN | Rev. October 2021 |
| Form W-8BEN-E | Rev. October 2021 |
| Inst W-8BEN-E | Rev. October 2021 |
4. Each section is checked independently
We draft pages with the help of AI writing tools. Before a page is published, every sentence that states a rule is sent, together with the official text, to three AI models from different companies. Each has to quote the official sentence that supports it, and a script checks that the quoted sentence really exists. If any of the three cannot support a sentence, or says it contradicts the official text, we remove it and leave a link to the official page instead; we do not reword our way around it. To make sure the checkers are paying attention, each batch also contains a few deliberately wrong sentences, and we record whether each model caught them.
5. How we choose which services to list
On pages that compare paid services, a service is listed only if its own website (a) shows a public price, (b) says it works with owners who live outside the United States, and (c) can be read by our checking script under the site's own rules. Whether a service has an affiliate program, and how much it pays, plays no part. Services are listed in alphabetical order, and each price is shown with the date we read it.
6. What we leave out on purpose
- No pre-filled forms, generators or calculators.
- No answers to individual cases. Examples on our pages are fictional and are labeled that way.
- No guesses about how the IRS will treat a particular situation.
7. When we get something wrong
We correct it, note the date and the change at the bottom of the page, and list it on our corrections page.