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§10.4.5

Option Groups

Several checkboxes—independent fields or one answer group?

✅ NormativeSettled. The requirement holds as written.📄 Page ruleCan be applied from the page alone.Read §10.4.5 in the RFC ↗

The requirement

A question answered by ticking one or more of several printed boxes MUST be rendered as one group: the caption line, then one nested box-first line per option. Every printed option MUST be listed, ticked or not.

Pick-one

- **Filing Status**
  - [x] Single
  - [ ] Married filing jointly
  - [ ] Married filing separately (MFS)
  - [ ] Head of household (HOH)
  - [ ] Qualifying widow(er) (QW)

A group whose caption is only its id

W-2 box 13 prints three independent checkboxes. They are one printed cluster, so they are one group, captioned by the id alone:

- \[13\]
  - [x] Statutory employee
  - [ ] Retirement plan
  - [ ] Third-party sick pay

Options keep their own ids and may carry a write-in

An option MUST keep its printed id — here printed before the box, and written there — and an option with a write-in MUST carry the write-in after its box:

- \[16\] **Tax (see instructions). Check if any from Form(s):**
  - \[1\] [ ] 8814
  - \[2\] [ ] 4972
  - \[3\] [ ] [blank]
- \[16\]: 0.00

The line-16 amount is a separate unlabelled entry that shares the printed id, rendered right after the group. An id printed once per role appears once per role; that is not a duplicate.

Yes/No questions are option groups

A caption with two boxes — a virtual-currency question, K-1 items G and H1 — has the same structure as a five-option filing status and MUST be rendered the same way.

form-option-groups.png
Source: IRS Form 1040 (2020), digital-asset question line (public domain)

- **At any time during 2020, did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?**
  - [x] Yes
  - [ ] No

More

Sample sources1

Public-domain U.S. federal government source material.

  • IRS Form 1040 (2020), digital-asset question line

Rule id forms-option-groups · forms