IASC Foundation Publishes IFRS XBRL Taxonomy

The International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation's XBRL Team has released the near-final version of the IFRS Taxonomy 2008, translating International Financial Reporting Standards into Extensible Business Reporting Language.

The move follows the translation last year of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles into XBRL and the release of the GAAP taxonomy by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the American Institute of CPAs. GAAP and IFRS are on a path to convergence, and the SEC is pushing companies to file their financial statements in XBRL to make them easier for investors to analyze and compare.

"XBRL is rapidly becoming the format of choice for the electronic filing of financial information-particularly within jurisdictions reporting under IFRS," said Gerrit Zalm (pictured), chairman of trustees of the IASC Foundation, in a statement.

The IFRS Taxonomy 2008 represents a complete review of past taxonomies and is also the first taxonomy to undergo an extensive external review by the XBRL Quality Review Team, which was set up by the IASC Foundation at the end of 2007.

The XQRT includes 20 experts from the preparer community, securities regulators, central banks, financial institutions and software companies.

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