The Governmental Accounting Standards Board released a
The Discussion Memorandum, Voluntary Digital Financial Reporting—Structural Design, is a staff document that aims to elicit comments at an early stage in the project. GASB is looking for stakeholder feedback on how the taxonomy was organized to enable digitization of financial statements and asks respondents to comment on key taxonomy design considerations intended to help shape future voluntary digital financial reporting for state and local governments. These considerations include:
- Organization of GASB reporting requirements;
- Incorporation of existing optionality in GASB standards;
- Incorporation of observed practice regarding presentation of financial statements; and
- Incorporation of government-specific information in financial statements.
The project is designed to improve access to governmental financial information for users of financial statements, and is being developed through two tracks. The first is preparer-focused and dedicated to developing a taxonomy for GAAP financial statements, which is the focus of this Discussion Memorandum. The second track is user-focused and seeks to improve how data is extracted from and normalized through the taxonomy.
The document doesn't propose any new accounting standards or reporting requirements. It instead is looking for input on the foundational structure of a taxonomy intended to support the digital representation of information currently reported in government financial statements while maintaining the reliability of the reported information and its reliance on GAAP.
GASB is asking its constituents to review the document and provide comments by Nov. 30, 2026. Comments can be submitted either in writing and addressed to the Director of Research and Technical Activities, who can be emailed at director@gasb.org, or via an
