Primary-source citations on every rate

Per-state reference rates and assistant answers carry citations today; every rate the tax engine emits, when it ships, will carry one — the same five-tier authority ranking everywhere.

Citations on every rate is a load-bearing brand commitment, not a nice-to-have. The per-state reference pages and the compliance assistant rank their citations on the five-tier authority scale today; the tax engine will use the same ranking when it ships, so a citation means the same thing everywhere.

The five-tier ranking

  1. Statute: actual state statute or federal code section.
  2. Regulation: eCFR, state administrative code.
  3. Agency guidance: TTB advisory letters, state ABC FAQ pages.
  4. Attested: a manually fetched record filed by the Ratify team with a primary-source URL.
  5. Trade association: NCSL, Wine Institute, etc. (informational but not authoritative).

The same ranking is applied everywhere a citation appears today, so the authority behind a rate means the same thing on every page.