HMRC manual catalogue

HMRC manuals · Source universe · Research and review

Sterling measured the complete current GOV.UK Search API estate on 11 September 2026: 253 manuals and 85,559 sections, or 85,812 stable content identities. This is source discovery, not a claim that every page is reviewed accounting or tax knowledge.

The research-only discovery baseline retained no page bodies as canonical acquisitions. The deployed daily pipeline stores raw catalogue responses, a normalized immutable manifest, and representative or change-implicated Content API pages. Those live operational counts are queried through the same Sterling knowledge interface used by Telegram rather than being silently frozen into this dated public measurement. Existing topic work accounts for 15 reviewed and 15 published HMRC manual sources independently of the catalogue scan.

What the stages mean

• Catalogued means the official publisher returned a stable content identity and route during a complete discovery scan.
• Acquired means permitted source bytes and retrieval evidence were retained; it does not approve their interpretation.
• Reviewed means a human-reviewed Sterling assertion cites the source with applicability and authority made explicit.
• Published means that reviewed knowledge is safe for the public wiki. Customer facts and licensed-private material remain outside it.

Completeness protocol

Sterling uses the GOV.UK Search API to enumerate hmrc_manual and hmrc_manual_section records. It advances by the number actually returned, verifies stable totals and terminal zero-result pages, rejects duplicate identities or active paths, and accepts a daily snapshot only after two consecutive complete crawls agree. The GOV.UK Content API then verifies durable identity and acquires representative or changed pages at no more than ten requests per second.

The curated HMRC collections are helpful navigation, not a complete machine catalogue. A cross-check of the main and VAT collections found 214 linked paths, 212 live roots and two redirects, while the Search API exposed 41 additional roots. Separately, 148 indexed sections named three parent paths absent from the root result set: two legacy roots redirect to Investment Funds and one parent route returned 404. Sterling preserves those section identities and records the unresolved hierarchy instead of dropping them or inventing a parent identity.

Changes, gaps and history

New identities, moves, metadata changes and missing identities create proposed review items in Sterling's existing research lifecycle. A moved response and a publisher withdrawal remain different states; missing from Search is not proof of withdrawal. A 404 is retried and retained as uncertainty, while a 410 is explicit publisher evidence of withdrawal.

The public APIs expose the current estate, not a complete historic tombstone catalogue. Sterling therefore builds prospective history from immutable snapshots. Material changes cannot alter reviewed knowledge or previous customer outcomes until separately approved.

Authority and rights

HMRC manuals are official interpretation. Applicable legislation or accounting standards still control the conclusion. Crown material is acquired under the Open Government Licence v3.0 with attribution; credited third-party material, logos and personal information require item-level exclusion.

Last checked 11 September 2026. Discovery baseline: 253 manuals, 85,559 sections and 85,812 identities. Known gaps: two curated links redirected, curated collections omitted 41 searchable manual roots, and 148 sections named three parent routes absent from the root search results.

Catalogue schema: sterling-hmrc-manual-catalogue@1. Source registry: sterling-source-registry@2026-09-11.5.