Below is a summary of the changes in the new XBRL taxonomy as well as a link to a quick reference guide that lists out all the new, deprecated, and modified elements within the 2015 US GAAP taxonomy.

What’s New in 2015

The 2015 UGT embraces a new initiative that was started in 2014 to simply the US GAAP taxonomy. To this end, almost 300 XBRL elements were removed to reduce the overall size of the taxonomy in an effort to make it easier to locate appropriate elements. Changes were also made to the taxonomy to account for Accounting Standards Updates (ASUs) and feedback from certain industry groups. The main industry-related changes affect the insurance industry, the financial services industry, and federal home loan banks.

309 new elements: Elements were added to the taxonomy to account for ASUs, comments from the public, recommendations from industry groups, and various analyses performed by FASB. 107 of the new elements were created from ASUs. The remaining 202 were created after review of filings, comments, recommendations and analyses.

343 changes to Codification references: 343 elements were modified to include additions, replacements or removals to their Codification references.

103 changes to documentation: Changes were made to 103 documentation labels (definitions) to help clarify the meaning of concepts, to remove certain restrictive wording, to incorporate ASUs, and to correct inconsistencies between the labels and the definition of elements. 40 of these changes were the result of a review of filings, public comments, and industry recommendations. The remainder of the documentation label changes were made to accommodate ASUs.

64 label changes: In the 2015 taxonomy, 64 elements had their Standard, Period Start, Period End, or Total label changed to help XBRL preparers better understand the intended application of that particular element. While these elements had a label change, the element name for each element has not changed. The breakdown of these labels changes is as follows: 50 elements were changed to modify their Standard label; 6 elements were changed to add, remove, or modify their Total label; 1 element was changed to add, remove, or modify its Period Start or Period End label; 6 elements were changed to modify both their Standard and Total labels; and 1 element was changed to modify both its Standard and Period Start or Period End labels.

7 change label clarifications: In the new taxonomy, clarification was added to the change label for 7 elements to aid preparers in determining the intended use for those elements.

441 deprecated elements: More than half of the deprecated elements in the 2015 taxonomy (290) were deprecated as part of the taxonomy simplification initiative. Other reasons that elements are deprecated include errors in their creation, infrequent use, or because the element was superseded by ASUs or other GAAP changes. If a deprecated element is superceded by another element, preparers can review an element’s Deprecated Label to locate a replacement element. XBRL preparers can also use the definition linkbase to view relationships between deprecated elements and other elements within the taxonomy. Deprecated elements will remain in the taxonomy for two years to aid in transitioning financial reports and viewing legacy documents but should not be used in new SEC filings.

1 removed balance type: This year, the new taxonomy has a balance type that was removed from an element. The balance type was removed for the FiniteLivedIntangibleAssetsPeriodIncreaseDecrease element.

Removal of the 2012 UGT deprecated elements: With EDGAR Release 14.1 last year, the 2012 US-GAAP Taxonomy was no longer accepted by the SEC. The 628 elements that were deprecated in the 2012 UGT will no longer appear in the 2015 UGT.

While there is currently a transition period where the SEC will continue to accept EDGAR filings that use the 2013 taxonomy, we always recommend making the move to the latest taxonomies as soon as possible. The taxonomies change because of ASUs, public comment, analysis of data, and other impetuses. The most valuable data you can provide your investors and the public will be data that is the most up to date with accounting standards and financial reporting standards.


_______________________
Sources:
http://www.fasb.org/jsp/FASB/Page/SectionPage&cid=1176164649716
http://www.sec.gov/info/edgar/ednews/xbrl-taxonomy-update.htm

Additional Resources:
http://www.xbrl.us