SEE Part 1 study resources: free IRS material
The best study material for SEE Part 1 is free: the IRS’s own 2025 publications and form instructions, plus the official Candidate Information Bulletin from PSI. The exam tests the law as amended through December 31, 2025, and questions are about calendar year 2025, so the 2025 editions are the source that matches the exam most closely. Commercial courses are useful for practice questions, but everything they teach comes from these documents.
Start with the official bulletin
The PSI Candidate Information Bulletin (on the PSI IRS page, test-takers.psigov.us/irs) gives you the format, rules and the content outline for all three parts. The outline is the syllabus: six domains for Part 1, with the number of scored questions in each. Print it and tick off each line as you study it.
Publication 17 is the backbone
Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax (2025 edition) covers most of the Form 1040 in one document: filing status, dependents, income, adjustments, the standard deduction and itemized deductions, and most credits. Read it once from start to finish in your first weeks, using the domain guides to decide how deeply to go into each chapter.
Topic publications by domain
Pub 17 gives the overview. When a topic is heavily tested, go to the dedicated publication:
| Domain | Publications worth reading |
|---|---|
| Preliminary work | 501 (dependents, standard deduction, filing information), 519 (aliens), 54 (citizens abroad) |
| Income and assets | 525 (taxable and nontaxable income), 550 (investment income), 551 (basis), 544 (sales of assets), 523 (selling your home), 590-A and 590-B (IRAs), 915 (Social Security), 4681 (canceled debt), 925 (passive activities) |
| Deductions and credits | 502 (medical), 526 (charitable), 936 (mortgage interest), 503 (dependent care), 970 (education), 596 (EIC), 974 (premium tax credit) |
| Taxation | 505 (withholding and estimated tax), 517 (clergy), 3 (armed forces), 926 (household employers) |
| Advising | 504 (divorced or separated), 555 (community property), 971 (innocent spouse) |
| Specialized returns | 559 (survivors and executors), instructions for Forms 706, 709 and 8938, and the IRS comparison of Form 8938 and FBAR |
Form instructions: the underrated source
Form instructions are often more precise than publications, and each opens with a What’s New section listing the changes for the year. For 2025 that matters a lot. Read at least:
- Form 1040 instructions (2025), especially What’s New, filing requirements and the standard deduction.
- Schedule A, Schedule SE and Schedule H instructions.
- Form 8606 (IRA basis), Form 8962 (premium tax credit), Form 8867 (preparer due diligence).
- Forms 706 and 709 instructions for the specialized returns domain.
How to use them without drowning
IRS publications are long, and you do not need to memorise them. A method that works:
- Outline first. For each line in the content outline, find the chapter or publication that covers it.
- Read for rules, not figures. Write each rule as one line. Note a dollar figure only if it is labelled 2025.
- Test yourself straight away. Work the matching questions in our domain guides and the practice test.
- Go back to the source when you get something wrong. Rereading the exact paragraph fixes the misunderstanding better than a summary.
Figures: the one trap to avoid
The 2025 legislation changed several individual figures, among them the standard deduction, the state and local tax limit and the child tax credit, and added new deductions. Many books, videos and websites still show the old numbers, or the 2026 numbers. Use 2025 IRS documents only, and treat a figure without a year as unreliable.
Worth paying for
A bank of practice questions with explanations, for volume. The free material teaches the rules; timed practice teaches you to apply them in two minutes.
What to skip
- Books for earlier tax years. Wrong figures cost marks.
- Braindumps. Candidates agree to a non-disclosure agreement at the start of the exam, and memorised items do not teach the rules you need for new scenarios.
- Professional tax research services. Useful in practice, too much for the exam.
Start with the 8-week study plan, and keep the cheat sheet for the final week.