IMA, the association for aountants and financial professionals in business, has announced its support of The Digital Aountability and Transparency Act (the DATA Act) (H.R. 2146) and urges the full U.S. House of Representatives to proceed on the bill’s passage. IMA supports the use of XBRL to achieve the bill’s goal of providing aountability and transparency of US federal ernment spending.

The DATA Act includes a provision to require a newly created Financial Aountability and Spending Transparency Board (FAST Board) to llect information from federal agencies, as well as from recipients of federal grants, ntracts, and loans. The bill further requires the FAST Board to designate mmon data elements and reporting requirements for the information provided by grant recipients and agencies. The DATA Act specifies XBRL, the global business reporting standard, as a data reporting language that should be nsidered to meet the requirement.

“As an original -founder of the XBRL standard, IMA believes XBRL will benefit businesses, the ernment, investors, analysts, and the public by creating a mmon data format for the transparent, streamlined exchange and analysis of data critical to ernment oversight and capital markets functions,” said Brad J. Monterio, IMA board member, chair of IMA’s XBRL mmittee and managing director at lmgroup, Inc. “We urge the U.S. House to pass this legislation and realize the benefits much like we have seen in Australia, the herlands, the U.K., and other untries in which XBRL has been mandated across ernment agencies.”

In tandem with ngressman Issa’s efforts, U.S. Senator Mark R. Warner, D-Va., announced his support and -sponsored legislation in the U.S. Senate on June 16. The legislation will go before the U.S. House of Representatives for a voice vote, while the U.S. Senate is in the process of schling hearings.