XBRL US supports XBRL for MD&A Filing
XBRL US has published a comment letter encouraging the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to include XBRL tagging in recent proposals to modernise Management’s Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) disclosures. Other parts of the world often call these disclosures “Management Commentary”.
Earlier this year the SEC proposed a number of reforms to modernise, enhance and simplify MD&A disclosures. MD&A disclosures provide a valuable view of a company from the perspective of its management. It includes targeted, company-specific information and an assessment of risks that are material to the company’s specific situation.
The various reforms include eliminating certain sections of the MD&A rendered redundant due to the data already existing elsewhere. XBRL US notes that they support this modernisation and simplification step, however, they also encourage the SEC to revise their proposal to include XBRL tagging for clearly defined portions of the MD&A.
While the proposals currently do not include introducing XBRL tagging in the MD&A, XBRL US argues that there are broad categories of content that are relatively consistently included in MD&As which could be block tagged in XBRL. Currently, this data is not always consistently organised, making it hard to find and compare. Block tagging the MD&A would make the data more easily identifiable and usable, with minimal effort involved for filers and significant benefit for investors.
Read more here, read the SEC proposal here, and read XBRL US’s comment letter here.
