George,
I think the issue is more one of content first and implementation
second, at least in my mind. Agreed that a key source of information
will be the accounting system, but not always. XBRL GL is a good
implementation of a transport mechanism for the reporting supply chain.
One might even argue that the enhancement of XBRL GL with Tax XML
standard tags may serve to meet many tax audit/compliance needs for
fully. But I would argue also that this is not always the case. Data
sourced in sub-ledgers and support systems may be equally important
from a compliance perspective. There are some jurisdictions that define
a tax liability at a point other than when an transaction is posted to
the GL. XBRL GL may not support such sources completely. A well
formed ontology framework can be used to ensure that XBRL GL or STF or
SAF could all meet compliance needs because the information is mappable
to the framework definitions and terms both globally and potentially
locally. There also may be equally persuasive arguments to have a
recommended Tax XML reporting format that is a superset of all
requirements, and that also provides recommendations on when to use
other XML standards such as XBRL GL, CIQ, Tax Core Component tags for
transaction tax details, etc.
I think XBRL as a deployment for reporting does have its benefits, but
we will inevitably require support for multiple expressions of the Tax
Ontology.
Just my thoughts,
Alex
George Farkas wrote:
I
agree that one ought to be careful, but the discussion ignores XBRL
GL.
XBRL GL (and Eric Cohen is the expert here) enables the tax world to
get the information it needs at a far more granular level than XBRL
financial reporting. If we ignore XBRL GL, we are ignoring some of the
best standardized ways of obtaining the tax information that is
required.
IMHO, if my limited knowledge of XBRL GL is correct, XBRL GL can
provide the reports of the transactions as is needed.
Disclosure: As Chair of XBRL Canada, I may be biased in that
direction.
George Farkas
President, XBI Software Inc
Chair, XBRL Canada
At 02:01 AM 3/12/2004, Lutes Terence H wrote:
I very
much agree with
Phil and Andy's point.
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Allen
[mailto:plega-oasis@decisionsoft.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 4:15 AM
To: tax@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [tax] Comments on XML Position Paper
On Tuesday 09 March 2004 11:47, Andy Greener wrote:
> I'm also a little nervous about recommending
XBRL wholesale as the
> standard for tax reporting. It is certainly
appropriate in the
> corporate financial reporting world, and by
extension therefore the
> corporate tax reporting world, but I can think
of a number of tax
> reporting scenarios here in the UK for instance
for which it would be
> less than ideal (personal tax compliance
information, payroll
> deduction and compliance information for income
tax and National
> Insurance, duty on property and financial
transactions, etc).
I would like to support Andy's point here. XBRL is
very well suited for corporate financial data and related tax and
regulatory reporting - but much other tax data is transactional in
nature and so there is a strong case for couching it in conventional
XML. The widespread acceptance of XBRL is a huge step forward for the
financial services industry but we must be careful not to oversell it.
Regards
--
Philip Allen, Chairman DecisionSoft Limited
+44-1865-203192 http://www.decisionsoft.com
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