How to use this
This site exists so that a question about a CRA rule has one answer, with a source attached, that everybody uses.
Cite by anchor ID
Every rule has an ID like ITC-01 that never changes, even when
the rule does. Stamp a published post with the IDs it relies on. When a rate
moves you can then find every affected post with one search, instead of
re-reading them all.
Asking an AI assistant
Point it at this site and ask it to cite the anchor:
- "Using rules.backofficestars.ca, what are the ITC documentary thresholds, and which anchor says so?"
- "Check rules.backofficestars.ca/do-not-cite/ before you cite RC4110."
- "What does rules.backofficestars.ca say about the Quick Method, and what flag is on it?"
Machine-readable copies, if you are wiring something up:
llms.txt, llms-full.txt,
anchors.json, do-not-cite.json.
Every page also has a plain-Markdown twin at index.md.
What the flags mean
- Current
- Verified against the live source. Safe to cite.
- Stale — principle only
- The principle holds; a figure or date in it may not. Check the figure before you use it.
- Archived — caveat required
- The source is archived. Cite it only with the caveat that it is no longer maintained.
- Unconfirmed
- Believed right, never verified against a source. Do not publish from this alone.
- Under review
- A change was detected that could not be confidently interpreted. Treat as unsafe until it clears.
Three things that will bite you
- Never take a figure from a source document page. Those are copies of CRA publications and many carry rates that are years out of date. Rates come from the rates page only.
- Check do not cite before citing a CRA guide. Some cancelled guides are still served in full by CRA with no banner on the page itself.
- If your question is in gaps, stop. It is there because it has not been verified. Do not answer it from memory.
How you know it is broken
No Monday message means it is broken. The weekly check posts to the Chat space every Monday, including weeks when nothing changed — so that silence can only ever mean failure, never "all quiet". If Monday passes with no message, say so; do not assume the sources went unchanged.