Written by: Ashley Goldsmith, Product Manager (Accounts Production)
Legislation came into force in the UK on 1st January 2010 which meant that it was then compulsory for companies to file their accounts and tax computations electronically using iXBRL.
Nearly 12 years later there have been several iterations and variations of taxonomy used in the UK and Ireland, such that it can be difficult to keep up with the current version.
The table below shows which taxonomies are currently accepted by HMRC and Companies House:
| Taxonomy | HMRC expiry date (period end) | Companies House expiry date |
| FRC 2018 | 31 March 2021 | April 2021 (expired) |
| FRC 2019 | 31 March 2022 | April 2022 |
| FRC 2019 SECR | 31 March 2022 | April 2022 |
| FRC 2021 | To be confirmed | To be confirmed |
| FRC 2021 SECR | To be confirmed | To be confirmed |
Latest taxonomy
The FRC’s 2022 suite of taxonomies were issued on 8th October 2021, comprising of individual schemas for FRS 101, FRS 102 and IFRS for both the UK and Ireland. There is also an updated taxonomy for Charities.
The 2021 version did not update the Irish taxonomies, so this will be their first update since 2019.
The new taxonomy will incorporate the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) tags within the main body of the UK taxonomies, so there will be no separate SECR release.
Companies House plan to make the new suite live by 1st April 2022, at which point the 2019 version of the taxonomy (for UK entities) will cease to be accepted. Typically HMRC will follow suit within 3-6 months.
ESEF filing
The European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) mandate was introduced by the European Union in a bid to increase transparency by promoting accessibility, analysis and comparability of annual financial reports.
The ESEF regulation applies to entities who are subject to the EU’s 2013 Transparency Directive (those whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market within a member state of the EU). For UK-based entities, those listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market would fall within scope, but not those listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).
The regulation was set to come into force for periods beginning on or after 1st January 2020 but a delay of one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant that this now applies for those with a period start date in 2021.
The requirement states that entities must tag their consolidated financial statements using the UKSEF taxonomy and produce an XHTML document for electronic submission. The taxonomy itself is based upon the IFRS taxonomy with certain additions required by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
This becomes more onerous in year 2, with a requirement to tag additional notes to the financial statements.
Will Caseware be including ESEF filing?
Given our decision to exclude the complex additional disclosure required by traded entities under company law, we have made the decision to not enable ESEF filing within the IFRS template.
The FRC 2022 taxonomies will be introduced in the third quarter of next year, but as per previous updates, the previous versions (2021 for UK or 2019 for Ireland) will remain available, particularly for those entities which are ongoing, when the update is released.