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Subject: Embedding XBRL in UBL
Hello CSC, The following message from Andy Greener, the chair of the OASIS Tax XML TC, comes at the end of a long but rather disconnected conversation between us that I have been having a hard time tracking between contacts. We finally seem to have boiled this down to something that even I can remember, and I've received his permission to forward this summary to the appropriate subcommittee(s). I've also taken advantage of this Sunday in Milan to go back and get the earlier example that Andy refers to, which I copied to Tim, Lisa, Mavis, Mark, and Ken on 9 October 2003; you should find this attached below. I need to know which SCs should take ownership of this issue. TTSC + ISC + LCSC, maybe? Or just put it on the coordination list? Jon ============================================================= Correspondents: Please be aware that I am traveling in Europe 19 January through 6 February and will therefore be slow in accessing and responding to email. ============================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:51:00 +0000 To: jon.bosak@Sun.COM From: Andy Greener <andy@gid.co.uk> Subject: Re: OASIS Tax XML TC Jon, >Urgh. I'm getting mixed up between a conversation I've been >having with you about the technical issue and a conversation I've >been having with the head of XBRL about replacing our current >liaison member. No problem! It's easily done when you're working too hard! >Now what you're saying -- and I admit that I don't have time to go >back and understand what you originally sent me -- is that there >is data in XBRL format that needs to be in the UBL instance in the >first place. My apologies for just not getting that the first >time around. Correct... >Could you give me a really really simple example (meaning >something that I can grasp in 10 seconds or less and maybe retain >for longer than that) of some specific item of data that you would >want to see encapsulated in (say) a UBL invoice but not have in a >UBL format? What I'm seeking to understand here is the workflow, >not the details. Ok, well the specific example I'm thinking of would require a leap of imagination to a point where there exists a UBL conformant tax return doc (ie a member of a tax-specific extension to the set of UBL business document templates), and more specifically a corporate tax return doc. In many countries a corporate tax return has to include company accounts (or parts thereof) as supporting material, and possibly tax-specific data derived from those accounts. In work flow terms, that data would already be available from accounting systems in XBRL format, and the requirement at the point of tax filing would be to combine that data with the corporate return, represented as a UBL conformant return form. Tax authorities would also like to receive that data in XBRL format as there are XBRL financial analysis tools that can be usefully applied to it. It *could* just be done by creating a composite document that encapsulates both the UBL tax return and the XBRL accounts data (either using XML as the 'glue' or something else, like MIME), but that would result in a document that is not itself UBL conformant - so much better if the UBL conformant tax return doc could encapsulate the XBRL data and remain UBL conformant. Thus, the Tax XML TC could design international standards for various types of tax return documents that build on the good work done by UBL already, using UBL-conformant techniques (BIEs, the context mechanism proposed for post-v1.0, etc), safe in the knowledge that XBRL-originated data can be accommodated. I hope that makes sense. Such a composite tax return document was what I cobbled together from an existing UK XML-based sample return doc and some sample XBRL, and which formed the bulk of the example I sent you a while ago. Regards Andy -- Andy Greener Mob: +44 7836 331933 GID Ltd, Reading, UK Tel: +44 118 956 1248 andy@gid.co.uk Fax: +44 118 958 9005 ################################################################## Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 09:13:06 -0700 (PDT) From: jon.bosak@sun.com To: andy@gid.co.uk CC: tmcgrath@portcomm.com.au, lseaburg@aeon-llc.com, mavis.cournane@cognitran.com, mcrawford@lmi.org, gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com Subject: Re: OASIS Tax XML TC Hello Andy, Thank you very much for taking the trouble to prepare the example I requested illustrating your question regarding the use of UBL in conjunction with XBRL for tax documents. Since last I wrote, we've run into a scheduling crunch that will delay consideration of this question for a few weeks. Briefly put, a miscommunication between two of our subcommittees is going to cause us to slip our release schedule for UBL 1.0 Beta about a week and change the upcoming UBL TC meeting 3-7 November from a planning session into a working session so that we can get Beta out. This being the case, I can't take the chance of interrupting the NDR SC with this question as they're trying to finish up their part of the work. I'm copying the chairs of the UBL NDR and Library Content SCs to make them aware of this issue and to alert them that we will need to investigate this problem as soon as we've shipped the Beta. This looks like the kind of question that could be answered with about one hour of focused attention on the part of our schema and CC experts, but I don't think I can safely ask for that level of attention right at the moment without throwing them off their current task. It's possible, of course, that I'm wrong and that your question has a quick answer, but the fact that you've already invested some time in this makes me suspect otherwise. Please bear with us for a few weeks and be assured that I will put this on our technical agenda for consideration as soon as we're past the upcoming Beta release. Best regards, Jon ================================================================== Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 16:22:02 +0100 To: jon.bosak@Sun.COM From: Andy Greener <andy@gid.co.uk> Subject: Re: OASIS Tax XML TC Jon, > If you can put this issue in concrete form, I'll >take responsibility for putting it in front of the UBL Naming and >Design Rules Subcommittee and getting an answer. Thanks. A compressed tar archive is attached - sorry it's a bit on the large side.... I hope the following makes sense! The example I've included is actually a cobbled together instance document composed of a sample Corporation Tax Return (CT600) and a separate sample XBRL Tax Computation - the CT600 service is live, but doesn't yet support embedded XBRL components. The PDF doc shows the structure of the example instance document to save you too much poring over the details of the XML. The CT600 return is a straightforward XML facsimile of a paper form, structurally speaking. There is no component structure to speak of, though its fairly obvious how it might become a UBL conformant doc in time. Currently, we embed base-64 encoded PDF docs representing Tax Computations and Company Accounts, which is why the AttachedFiles element is named as it is, but the plan is to migrate in two steps to replace first the Comp, and then the Accounts, by XBRL equivalents. The example instance contains just a Tax Comp XBRL instance, but the PDF diagram shows both a Tax Comp and Accounts in the AttachedFiles structure. Each of these XBRL-conformant components are described by one or more XBRL Taxonomies - a taxonomy is a Schema and associated Linkbases. The Tax Comp XBRL component in the example requires two Taxonomies to describe it: the IR-defined Tax Comp Taxonomy (in CT-Comp-2003-v1-1/, which also contains the basic XBRL instance Schema common to all XBRL documents), and an example extension Taxonomy designed to extend the coverage of the IR Tax Comp Taxonomy - the example Extension Schema and Definitions Linkbase are provided also (normally these would be supplied on the fly by the submitter, but I've kept that particular complexity out of the example!) I hope that the relative complexity of this XBRL component definition (the basic instance Schema and two layers of Taxonomy Schema on top) will give you some idea of the issue I want clarified - if we were to define a UBL Corporate Tax Return document template and associated components, is it possible to embed XBRL-defined components like this in a UBL template and stay within the rules of UBL? (since XBRL instances are not composed simply of aggregations of CCs). Thanks for taking the time to help. Regards Andy Greener Consultant to UK Inland Revenue (acting on behalf of the OASIS Tax XML TC) -- Andy Greener Mob: +44 7836 331933 GID Ltd, Reading, UK Tel: +44 118 956 1248 andy@gid.co.uk Fax: +44 118 958 9005
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