SEC Adopts 2013 U.S. GAAP Taxonomy

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted that latest update to the U.S. GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy for filing financial statements using Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL.

The Financial Accounting Foundation and the Financial Accounting Standards Board are responsible for ongoing maintenance of the taxonomy for public issuers that are registered with the SEC.

The U.S. GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy contains updates for accounting standards and other improvements to the official Taxonomy previously in use by SEC issuers. The Taxonomy as accepted by the SEC has been modified from the release made available on December 21, 2012. Refer to the 2013 GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy Release Notes for details of the changes.
The U.S. GAAP 2013 Taxonomy is available here.

Questions about using this Taxonomy for creating and submitting XBRL-tagged interactive data files in compliance with SEC rules should be directed to the SEC. The SEC contact details and guidance are available at the SEC’s portal on XBRL.

The U.S. GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy is a list of computer-readable tags in XBRL that allows companies to tag precisely the thousands of pieces of financial data that are included in typical long-form financial statements and related footnote disclosures. The tags allow computers to automatically search for, assemble, and process data so it can be readily accessed and analyzed by investors, analysts, journalists, and regulators.

In early 2010, the Financial Accounting Foundation assumed maintenance responsibilities for the taxonomy, and, along with the FASB, assembled a team of technical staff dedicated to updating the taxonomy for changes in U.S. GAAP, identifying best practices in taxonomy extensions, and technical enhancements.

The SEC noted that U.S. GAAP 2013 Taxonomy is now available for use in EDGAR, and the U.S. GAAP 2011 Taxonomy is no longer available

The SEC Web page http://sec.gov/info/edgar/edgartaxonomies.shtml provides  a complete listing of supported standard taxonomies.

The SEC staff is strongly encouraging companies to use the most recent version of taxonomy releases for their interactive data submissions to take advantage of the most up to date tags related to new accounting standards and other improvements.

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