FAF to maintain US GAAP Taxonomy

On 5 February, the FAF (Financial Accounting Foundation) announced its new responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of the US GAAP Taxonomy applicable to public issuers registered with the US SEC, which was developed by XBRL US Inc. The FAF and FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) will assemble a team of technical staff dedicated to maintaining the taxonomy, and will work towards the release of the next taxonomy update in early 2011.  This copies the approach adopted by the IASC Foundation for the development of the IFRS Taxonomy.

House legislation promotes XBRL adoption

On 11 December, the House of Representatives passed HR 4173, the Financial Stability Improvement Act (also known as the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act). The legislation includes calls for financial market regulators to report to Congress for each of the next five years on how they are "developing principles-based accounting standards" (such as IFRS) and "encouraging the use and acceptance of interactive data" (XBRL) to increase transparency in financial reporting.

The use of XBRL was recently recommended in another Bill - HR 2392, the Government Information Transparency Act - which was introduced in May 2009. This Bill calls for the mandatory use of XBRL by all federal government agencies to standardise the collection, analysis and dissemination of business information, thereby simplifying mandatory financial reporting for companies that receive federal funds. The legislation also proposes that public companies file their activity reports in XBRL format and that the reported financial information be made public. The Bill has been placed on the Union Calendar for consideration by the House.