Audit an answer before it goes in a memo

1 · Learn the move · Fact-check list

In tax work, an invented answer is rarely wild. It is a Code section number that sits where a real one should, a revenue ruling that sounds like the ones you have read, a Tax Court cite with a plausible volume, a threshold or rate stated to the dollar with no source. The giveaway is confidence without a trail. A real authority can be opened: you can find the section, read the ruling, see the holding. An invented one gives you a name and a number and nothing underneath. So treat every authority and every figure as a claim you are about to sign. Pull every claim out of the draft, one per line, and next to each write what proves it: the statute on the government's site, the regulation in the CFR, the ruling in the bulletin, the form instructions for the year, the client's own document you were given. A claim with no source gets [NEEDS]. A claim with a source gets VERIFY until you have opened it and read the passage. If you cannot open it, it goes in your notes as unverified, and it stays out of the memo and the client letter. The model builds the list. You open every line.

Here is a draft answer: [paste]. Pull out every claim in it, one per line: every authority, every figure, every threshold, every date, every statement about what the client did. Beside each write the source that would prove it (statute / regulation / bulletin / form instructions with year / a document I gave you) and VERIFY. If a claim has no source, write [NEEDS: what would prove it]. Do not tell me any claim is correct; you cannot know. End with the count of claims and the count with no source.