SEC Approves FASB Support Fee; FAF To Maintain XBRL

There was a lot of buzz last week about the Financial Accounting Foundation's Feb. 5 announcement that it would take over responsibility for maintaining the U.S. GAAP Taxonomy for eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) (see here (RAAS Consulting Random Comments Blog), here (Compliance Week) , and here (AICPA JofA)). There have also been some other updates and commentary on XBRL reported here (MACPA CPA Success Blog), here (Resources Global Finance & Accounting Blog), here (Hitachi Data Interactive Blog), and here (RAAS Consulting Random Comments Blog-an interview with SEC OID Director David Blazkowsky).

However, there's been less reporting on the SEC's Feb. 2 Order approving the FASB's annual support fee, and in the process, continuing to affirm that the FASB meets the requirements for a standard-setter as specified in Section 109 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. (TheCorporateCounsel.net blog previously reported on this development.)

The Order issued by the SEC is a fairly routine act, but significant nonetheless in the SEC's granting FASB's continued financial (via the FASB support fee charged to public companies) and authoritative status.

The decision for FAF to take on responsibility for maintaining the U.S. GAAP XBRL taxonomy, and listing positions for which it will hire experts to address this task, was no doubt taken into consideration in the FASB's Accounting Support Fee, thus connecting the two announcements noted above: the FAF announcement re: XBRL, and the SEC Order re: FASB budget.

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