To date, we've discovered two important issues facing HMRC Filers:

1. iXBRL formatting of accounts:

For years companies have provided their accounts to HMRC on paper. The Revenue has then keyed in the relevant pieces of information that help them understand the circumstances of each taxpaying corporation. This has clearly involved a huge manual effort on their part, with analysis done mainly by hand.

In 2006, as part of the Carter Report, HMRC moved to mandate the use of structured data for filing with the regulator. Many other heads of duty, including Self Assessment, PAYE and VAT, have already made the shift to electronic filing. These e-filing systems, being simply electronic forms, employ XML as their transport mechanism. However, financial statements and tax computations are free format documents, that can vary greatly from company to company. This data is not contained in forms. Read more about HMRC's requirements in our handy FAQs.

The Revenue decided to use Inline XBRL, to ensure that the information is formatted such that it is not only human readable but can also be consumed by computers, enabling automated analysis. The problem that companies now face is how to construct the Inline XBRL formatted versions of their accounts and computations.

2. Understanding XBRL:

Companies in the United Kingdom that are subject to the new HMRC filing obligation to provide information in Inline XBRL format, may well be wondering what XBRL is all about.