Financial Reporting in XBRL on the SEC's EDGAR System: A Critique and Evaluation

This paper evaluates the implications of the proposed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule (33‐8496) which encourages companies to file reports in the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format. We examine the impact of the proposed rule in three domains: (1) the role of XBRL in financial reporting, (2) concerns with XBRL taxonomies, and (3) the impact of XBRL on the SEC's filing program. The paper adopts a descriptive approach to generate normative and prescriptive propositions with implications for research that will guide preparers, users, and regulators of XBRL‐tagged information.

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