XBRL wake-up call: more corporate tax reporting using XBRL--don't hit snooze.

• Author: Monterio, Brad J.
• Position: Technologyupdate

XBRL, a global structured data standard (hat makes business and financial information readable by computers easily, accurately and quickly, is impacting millions of corporate tax departments around the world. In die United Kingdom, more than 1.6 million public and private companies must file their lax forms in XBRI. formal. In Germany, almost 2 million companies must do so. China has mandated XBRI, across 11 ministries and agencies, including its tax authority. And other tax Sling and collection programs around the world are exploring die use of XBRI, to streamline the corporate tax reporting process and reduce the administrative burden.

Absent a mandate from die IRS, you may not be impacted in the United Slates yet. Rest assured, however, that XBRI, for lax reporting will probably affect you at some point in die near future if the examples set by tax authorities in die UK. China, Germany and other countries are any indication.

In the UK, private and public companies were required to file their tax returns as of April 1, 2011, in XBRL format the UK HM Revenue & Customs, the country's tax authority. All eves are on the UK as it undertakes die world's largest scale live implementation of XBRL to meet a tax-reporting requirement. Similar requirements or voluntary programs exist in Germany Denmark, Japan, China and the Netherlands.

Tax authorities in other countries, including the United Slates and Ireland, are also exploring the benefits of XBRI. for the lax preparation and filing process. These benefits include streamlined reporting processes; for both corporate preparer and the regulatory consumption of the data and reduced reporting burden again, for both corporate preparer and "consumer" of the information.

The growing trend among tax authorities requiring XBRI for tax filings indicates that corporate tax departments will soon find themselves in need of solutions to help diem prepare, analyze and share their tax information with key stakeholders, such as regulators, executive teams, finance teams and boards of directors.

XBRL has also received support from die Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards Tax XML, a group dedicated to promoting XML-based standards and interoperability concentrating on tax authorities and stakeholders with which (hey exchange information, it has also received support from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Taxpayer Services Subgroup that represents tax...