Q: Who creates the US-GAAP taxonomy?
A: The FASB develops and maintains the U.S. GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy. The SEC reviews and approves a new version each year for use by filers in EDGAR.
US-GAAP Taxonomy
Definition
The US-GAAP taxonomy is the standardized XBRL dictionary of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles reporting concepts that public companies use to tag the financial statements in their SEC filings. It defines thousands of elements — revenue, cost of goods sold, net income, total assets, stockholders' equity — each with a precise definition, data type, and reference to the underlying accounting standard.
It is the base taxonomy anchoring the XBRL data in nearly every 10-K and 10-Q, developed by the FASB and approved each year by the SEC.
Details
When a company tags its income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, it maps each reported figure to an element in the taxonomy — tagging a net income figure to us-gaap:NetIncomeLoss, for example. This shared vocabulary is what allows the same concept to be identified consistently across thousands of filers and many years. The taxonomy is updated annually, and companies select the appropriate version when they file. GeminIQ reads the as-filed values associated with these elements directly from EDGAR, without a third-party normalization layer. For the broader picture of how XBRL works, see the guide linked below.
FAQ
Q: How is the US-GAAP taxonomy related to XBRL?
A: XBRL is the tagging language; the US-GAAP taxonomy is the dictionary of concepts that XBRL tags point to. A company uses XBRL to tag a number, and that tag references a specific element defined in the US-GAAP taxonomy.
Q: What happens when a company needs a concept the taxonomy lacks?
A: The company can create an extension element that adds the missing concept while remaining anchored to the base US-GAAP taxonomy. Extensions preserve company-specific reporting without breaking comparability with the standard elements.
Related Terms
Further Reading: What Is XBRL? How SEC Tagging Affects Your Investment Data
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