Agency and state materials
Secretary of State pages, tax agency instructions, licensing authorities, published forms, and official filing FAQs are the preferred source layer.
Primary sources win, stale sources get flagged, and unsupported claims do not belong in a compliance guide.
Small-business compliance content is only useful when readers can trace the guidance back to something authoritative. The site favors direct agency instructions whenever they are available.
Useful, but not authoritative on their own
Trade groups, law firms, service providers, and local business portals can clarify operational context, but they should not override a direct agency instruction.
Old pages should surface uncertainty, not hide it.
If a page has not been refreshed recently or the upstream guidance conflicts across sources, the confidence note should say so clearly and direct the reader to confirm the official source.
What does not qualify
- Anonymous forum posts or unattributed summaries.
- Purely promotional landing pages with no factual support.
- Claims that cannot be tied to a dated source or an official document.