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Subject: RE: [tax] Issues for v2.0 of position paper
Hello, Another aspect of standard development as broad as tax is a repository of schemas, artifacts, code lists. Moreover, the ownership and maintenance of these will be critical as well. I am certain that tax administrations and private enterprises will have vested interest in establishing and supporting such a repository. Any thoughts on this are welcome. Regards, Michael Roytman. |---------+-----------------------------> | | marc.van.hilvoorde| | | @nl.pwc.com | | | | | | 07/08/2004 08:28 | | | AM | | | | |---------+-----------------------------> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | To: tax@lists.oasis-open.org | | cc: "'Andy Greener'" <andy@gid.co.uk>, <swebb@gefeg.com> | | Subject: RE: [tax] Issues for v2.0 of position paper | >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| My thoughts on the current discussion I think there are more levels to discuss on the transport or security aspect. If I elaborate on your truck example You can make a choice for a car/truck to deliver packages You can tell people to take a specific route or road You can tell people if you take that road, please be careful and keep you speed limited to 60 You can act like the police and check if everybody is driving according to the rules My point here: I also think that transportation is less relevant, but transportation is linked to security. And i do think security is relevant. The question is: do we need or want security? If yes: who wants it, who is responsible? Everybody, so nobody? If my bank opens an office in a very bad neighbourhood (and the internet is not a safe place!) and asks me to bring my money (tax data), can I hold the bank responsible for my safety? Probably not, and that is why i do not carry much money with me and go to another bank. With tax filing i do not have much choice. And may be tax regulators will consider the safety of the people and feel at least a bit responsible for helping people to bring their money. What is security? "People should be able to send their packages (tax data) and get confirmation on: The package was received by the right party, in time and in the same order as it was send. " F.i. the CobIT framework can be considered as an open standard to achieve these purposes. I am not trying to complicate things, more connecting. The group should decide if the connection is relevant. If the goal of this group is to connect different standards (and make choices) to enhance the tax filing process (and make it more easy for the 'clients'), then security can be part of the discussions, i think. A starting point for further development could be the model on page 16 of the position paper. Would it add value to reconsider this model and add more details (I have seen some pretty impressive models in the group, and these are not part of the document, unfortunately), f.i. the layers Andy mentioned in his email? The way i see it: if the group evaluates different standards, this implies the existence of norms for the actual assessment. The filing process should the basis of that. There is some material in the position paper, but not very explicit. The model could force you to take an explicit standpoint (just examples of what i am trying to make clear) "Our tax organisation never wants to be dependent on one standard, unless it is open." "We never want to use just one standard, open or proprietory." "We find we are responsible for the process starting at A and ending at B." The same with levels in the process. "Whe like the standards we use to have as minimal overlap as possible" "CHoices between as little standards as possible against the best of breed" "Try to use as much as possible exisiting business reporting infrastructure in companies" "Try to convince as much software vendors to participate" ... --------------------------------------------------------- Met vriendelijke groet / best regards, Marc van Hilvoorde PricewaterhouseCoopers Accountants N.V. Global Risk Management Solutions tel.: +31 (0)30 219 1706 www.pwc.com/nl/xbrl "Sylvia Webb" <swebb@gefeg.com> To: "'Andy Greener'" 07-07-2004 22:11 <andy@gid.co.uk>, <tax@lists.oasis-open.org> Please respond to swebb cc: Subject: RE: [tax] Issues for v2.0 of position paper -----Original Message----- From: Andy Greener [mailto:andy@gid.co.uk] Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 9:33 AM To: tax@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: [tax] Issues for v2.0 of position paper During the recent conf call Harm Jan asked for suggestions/issues/ ideas for the next version of the Position Paper to be discussed on this list. This is a shameless attempt to kick-start the discussion! Of the issues outlined for discussion in Washington, but not really addressed, I think we can all but eliminate a couple right away (but please feel free to disagree :-): Transport: about as relevant to Tax as the make of truck FedEx use to deliver packages. We should be entirely independent of any transport mechanisms, whether locally defined or based on standards. In an ideal, strictly layered, world transport would be hidden well below our boundary of interest. However, the world is not ideal and practical transport restrictions do sometimes intrude. For instance, in the real world there are often practical upper limits on the size of messages (no use trying to FedEx a package bigger than their biggest truck). Whilst we should not be trying to specify transport mechanisms we can set acceptable parameters (such as minimum supported message size) and design our document framework in such a way that we can accommodate them. ==>Webb: I agree Closely allied to transport, and treated in the same way, are generic message formats such as MIME, DIME and SOAP. We should not care that tax documents (or other business documents with tax components) are cast into particular transport-oriented message formats for transmission, but again, there are untidy bits poking through the nice clean layers that need to be accommodated. Further work is needed to identify those aspects of tax domain documents that might need special provisions in any document standards we develop or adopt, or that might impose certain requirements on underlying transport formats and protocols. ===>Webb: There is another generic message that is in the approval process at UN/CEFACT called the Standard Business Document Header. It was sponsored by UCC but has gained the interest of other industry groups. It is at the application level not the transport level and may need to be reviewed as well. (We have a particular case in point in the UK: a message size limit of 25Mb is imposed by the Govt Gateway for good practical reasons, and whilst this would be unlikely to influence the design of an invoice Schema it does influence the design of Schemas for large tax documents that may approach or exceed this size - eg. our largest employer produces 200Mb+ of XML relating to annual employee payroll tax deductions and National Insurance contributions. Use of the UK Govt Gateway is imposed upon the UK tax administration by Govt-wide policy - it is not a choice that the tax administration is at liberty to make, and the same will likely be true for tax administrations in most other jurisdictions operating within the confines of some sort of e-Government structure or framework) Security: for the same reason that XBRL Int'l have rejected any specific support for security from their standard, so must we. Though it is applied to payloads, security in all its forms is not an integral part of a payload. The term "Security" also covers a multitude of sins - including but not limited to confidentiality, integrity, authentication, authorisation and non-repudiation. There are well-known ways of achieving all these aspects, and again, they are likely to be choices outside the control of individual tax administrations - jurisdictional policies are much more likely to play a key part in the choice of applicable standards. ===>Webb: I agree. Web Services: we probably need to discuss the scope of this and its applicability before coming to any firm conclusions. It is easy to see how recommendations in this area would be of practical use to tax administrations - I'm just not sure I know exactly what the scope is and exactly which way the wind is blowing in the Web Services standards world just now. Document structuring: we've really only scratched the surface of this in the present paper by making no more than passing references to UBL, OAGis and CICA. We need to be a lot clearer on where these standards are competing or complementary (for instance, ebXML Core Components seem to be a common thread leading to at least some convergence) and how we might utilise them in any standards framework we recommend. ===>Webb: I agree. Further, how ebXML Core Components are being implemented in UBL, OAGIS, and CICA are different. As an example, UBL is trying to become harmonized with UN/CEFACT ATG2 for both Core Component Types and NDR. OAGIS and CICA are only adopting CCT's. What does this really mean from a message design and standards adoption prospective? IMHO, we also need to explore what the pros and cons are of creating another standard versus adopting an existing one. Both UBL and OAGis address indirect tax already of course within their respective document framework definitions, and our indirect tax review is meant to get to the bottom of the differences and produce a reference model by which these standards can be judged, but I see the direct tax domain as an extension of the business document structuring techniques provided by these standards. These are two sides of the same coin: a supply-chain business document is simply a structured business-oriented document with some tax-specific as well as generic components, and a tax return document is simply a structured tax-oriented document with some generic as well as tax-specific components. Fundamentally they are structured document templates designed for a specific purpose and containing a number of specific and generic, re-usable, components. I'll leave it at that for now. Please feel free to comment on, challenge or even agree with(!) any of my statements, assertions or assumptions. 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 To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the OASIS TC), go to http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/tax/members/leave_workgroup.php . To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the OASIS TC), go to http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/tax/members/leave_workgroup.php . _________________________________________________________________ The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.
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