The
Financial Accounting Foundation announced it will take on
responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of the XBRL U.S. GAAP
Financial Reporting Taxonomy.
Its
activities will focus on updating the taxonomy for changes in U.S.
GAAP, best practices in taxonomy extensions, and technical enhancements.
The taxonomy is a list of computer-readable terms in XBRL that
allows companies to tag the thousands of pieces of financial data
that are included in typical long-form financial statements and
related footnote disclosures. The tags allow computers to
automatically search for and assemble data so it can be readily
accessed and analyzed by investors, analysts and SEC staff.
FASB and the FAF, which is responsible for FASB’s oversight, administration and finances, will assemble a small team of technical staff dedicated to maintaining the taxonomy and will work toward the release of the next taxonomy update in early 2011.
The
2009 taxonomy currently used by SEC issuers was developed by XBRL US
Inc., an independent nonprofit organization with research,
development and education programs facilitating the widespread
adoption of XBRL for tagging business reports across all business
domains. FASB provided technical accounting standards support to
XBRL US during the development of the 2009 taxonomy and expects to
continue cooperative interactions with XBRL US going forward.
As XBRL for US GAAP Financial Reporting moves from development
to maintenance, XBRL US Labs—a research-and-development initiative
launched in September—will continue to move forward. It plans to
release an ISO 20022 Corporate Actions Taxonomy, which provides a
common platform for the disclosure of U.S. corporate action messages
in a standardized XML syntax, for public review in the second
quarter of 2010, followed by similar releases for mortgage and proxy
taxonomies later this year, according to Michelle Savage, vice
president of communication for XBRL US.
As the user base expands, XBRL US will provide support in the form of what is expected to be a growing education and training program and service offerings. XBRL US also will continue to leverage its taxonomy development platform for other taxonomies for use of XBRL in areas beyond financial reporting.
