FAQs Updated to Include Revenue Response to iXBRL Incentive Proposal

Revenue's response to the five incentives proposed by Chartered Accountants Ireland for iXBRL filers was reported on in the July issue of tax.point. One such incentive was to extend the moratorium on the application of surcharges and penalties which could arise from iXBRL miscoding from one year to two years. Revenue has published its acceptance to this proposal in their iXBRL FAQS which states that “Revenue will not impose late filing surcharges or other penalties in respect of errors in the creation or filing of iXBRL tagged financial statements for a period of 2 years following mandation where a taxpayer has made reasonable efforts to comply with their obligations”.

The iXBRL FAQs are also updated to take into account a number of other practical and technical clarification points we have raised at a recent meeting of the iXBRL subgroup. These include:

• Confirmation that financial statements can be filed within one week of the CT1 return or after the due date for the return, whichever is later. This means that the deadline for filing iXBRL tagged financial statements is no later than one week after the due date
• Clarification that iXBRL financial statement which covers more than one ROS period may be submitted in respect of each of these periods.
• Companies who elect to re-cast their IFRS accounts to Irish GAAP as applied at December 2004 under section 10(6) TCA 1997 may submit their iXBRL financial statements tagged in accordance with either the original or re-cast accounting standard.

iXBRL Mandatory Filing Phase 2

Mandatory iXBRL filing will commence for corporate taxpayers dealt with by Revenue's LCD from 1 October this year. Revenue advised Chartered Accountants Ireland at a meeting of the iXBRL subgroup that further mandation of iXBRL filing will happen over the next two years. For our part we continue to emphasis the importance of taxpayer benefits for filing iXBRL financial statememts. Phase 2 of mandatory iXBRL has now been confirmed for corporate tax returns submitted after 1 October 2014 in respect of accounting periods ending on or after 31 December 2013. All corporate taxpayers, other than those meeting three specific criteria, akin to the audit exemption criteria, will be subject to phase 2.

The three criteria for exclusion from phase 2 of mandatory iXBRL filing are:

1. The balance sheet value of the company does not exceed €4.4 million;
2. The amount of the turnover of the company does not exceed €8.8 million; and
3. The average number of persons employed by the company does not exceed 50.

If a company does not meet all three of the above then they will be subject to mandatory filing of financial statements in iXBRL from 1 October 2014. Companies who meet all three criteria will likely have until 2015 before they are subject to mandatory iXBRL filings. We understand from Revenue that their intention is that all corporate taxpayers will be filing financial statements in iXBRL by end of 2015.

Revenue Emails Taxpayers Subject to iXBRL Mandatory Filing

You are reminded of the email which issued at the end of June from Revenue to agents advising of iXBRL filing obligations for their clients. If you are unsure as to whether your client(s) are subject to mandatory iXBRL filing under phase 1 from this October you can contact Revenue's LCD E-Filing Support Unit at (01) 8972801.

Following the email that issued to agents, Revenue also issued a direct email to corporate taxpayers dealt with by Revenue's Large Cases Division (LCD) to remind them of the commencement of mandatory filing of iXBRL financial statements from October this year.

An extract from the email which issued from Revenue to LCD corporate taxpayers is below for your reference.

“Revenue wishes to remind Corporation Tax payers dealt with by Revenue's Large Cases Division (LCD) of the commencement of the mandatory filing of financial statements in iXBRL in October this year.

As you may be aware, Corporation Tax payers currently have the option to file financial statements in iXBRL format via ROS (Revenue On-line Service). This option went live in November 2012.

iXBRL (inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a language which allows financial information to be communicated and presented in a format that may be recognised and read by both people and computers.

It will be mandatory for LCD Taxpayers to file iXBRL financial statements in support of Corporation Tax returns submitted on or after 1st October 2013, in respect of accounting periods ending on or after 31st December 2012. In the case of Securitisation Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), to which Section 110 Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 applies, mandatory iXBRL filing begins on 1st May 2014.

We strongly advise all relevant Corporation Tax Payers to familiarise themselves with their iXBRL obligations and to plan early to ensure readiness. Experience in other jurisdictions where such filing obligations have been introduced has shown that filers who delayed preparations for the transition to iXBRL were more likely to experience difficulties and incur unnecessary costs.

Chartered Accountants Ireland iXBRL Centre

Previous reports from Chartered Accountants Ireland on developments related to the iXBRL project, links to feature articles on the topic in Accountancy Ireland and tax.point, other relevant material from Chartered Accountants Ireland as well as links to Revenue's iXBRL webpage, are collated and published for your ease of reference on the Chartered Accountants Ireland's dedicated iXBRL webpage at http://www.charteredaccountants.ie/iXBRL