Copyright OASIS, 2001 Developing Information Standards for the Tax Community Dale Waldt Program Development, OASIS 28 April 2002

Copyright OASIS, 2001

Developing Information Standards forthe Tax Community

Dale Waldt

Program Development, OASIS

28 April 2002


Introduction

• Dale Waldt– Currently

• Program Development, OASIS

• XML Training & Business Consultant

– Previous Relevant Experience

• VP Product Technology, Research Institute of America, Tax Publishing Division of Thomson Corporation

• Author, SGML Implementation Guide (Springer 1995)

• Founder/Publisher, <TAG> Structured Information Newsletter

• Electronic Database Specialist, Internal Revenue Service

• Taxpayer Since 1978


Agenda

• A Vision for Tax Information Standards

• Standards Development Arenas

• Standards Development at OASIS

• A Vertical Community Case Study


Why Build Tax Info Standards?

• Obvious Reasons– More Efficient & Accurate Information

Interchange• Filings & Reporting

• Research Documents

– Leveraged Development• Calculations

• Processing

– Data Longevity • Platform & Product Independence

– Software Interoperability• ERP Integration

• Financial Systems Integration


Why Build Tax Info Standards?

• Counterintuitive Reasons (Concerns)

– Information as a commodity • or selling enhanced implementations?

– Lose competitive edge • or enable new partnerships?

– Removing barriers to switching • or simplifying processing

– Participating proactively in the inevitable • or playing catch up

"Cooperate on standardization, compete on implementation."


Activities Affected by Taxation

• Taxes Affect all Parts of the Business

• Systems Integration Opportunities– Finance & Banking

– Business Planning

– Commerce

– Accounting & Billing

– Benefits

– Payroll

– Reporting & Filing to Government


Potential Tax Info Standards

• By Tax Type

– Individual Income

– Corporate Income

– Pension & Estate

– Sales & Use

– Specialty

• By Venue Type

– Federal / National

– State

– Local Jurisdictions

– International

– Specialty

• By Data Type

– Financial & Accounting Records

– Filing & Reporting

– Primary Research Materials

– Secondary Research Materials

– Application Interoperability (APIs)

• By Application Type

– Data Entry

– Calculation

– Forms & Reporting

– Security

– Messaging

– Process Management


Recommendations…

• Participation needs to be open

• Representation needs to be broad

• Clear & impartial process will eliminate proprietary obstacles

• Implementation may need to be "local" or specific, but with a big picture in mind

• Convergence & harmonization is likely to follow "local" implementation

• Leveraging existing standards & experience will expedite development


Standards Development Forums• De Jure Standards Bodies

– ISO

– UN CEFACT

– Etc.

• De Facto Standards Bodies– OASIS

– W3C

– Etc.

• Industry Consortia– UDDI

– Rosetta Net

– Etc.

• Proprietary Specifications– Microsoft .Net

– Sun (etc.) J2EE

– Etc.


What is OASIS?

• OASIS is a member consortium dedicated to building systems interoperability specifications

• We focus on industry applications of structured information standards, such as XML, SGML, and CGM.

• Members of OASIS are providers, users and specialists of standards-based technologies and include organizations, individuals and industry groups.

• International, Not-for-profit, Open, Independent

• Successful through industry-wide collaboration


Mission

OASIS drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business

standards.


Where OASIS Fits

Core protocols, messaging; e.g. HTTPCore protocols, messaging; e.g. HTTP

XML, XSL, namespace, DOM, etc.XML, XSL, namespace, DOM, etc.

Horizontal, e-business frameworkHorizontal, e-business framework

Vertical industry applicationsVertical industry applicationsOASIS, industry associations

OASIS

W3C, ISO

IETF


OASIS Value

• Comprehension of & support for the Standards Process– OASIS experts charter the course to rapid

development & adoption

• Democratic Process including an Elected Board of Directors & comprehensive Intellectual Property and Anti-Trust Policies– Work is guaranteed to be representative of the

industry as a whole, not any one vendor’s view

• Global Visibility and Critical Partnerships– OASIS draws participation from around the world

& aggressively promotes the work – to ensure viability and adoption


What OASIS Offers Industry

• Time to Market: don’t waste your time and effort setting up– Committee process

– Infrastructure (web site, mail lists)

– IPR policy

– Copyright protection

– Program Management

– Marketing/Promotion

– Anti-trust

• Use your technical expertise on technical work, not on setting up administrative overhead


Sponsor MembersAccess360 Adobe Systems, Inc. AND Data Solutions B.V. Arbortext, Inc. Auto-trol Technology

Corporation Aventail Corp. Baltimore Technologies B-Bop Associates BEA Systems Inc. Bentley Systems Boeing Commercial

Airplanes Bowstreet Bridge Chrystal Software Cohesia Corporation Commerce One Critical Path DataChannel, Inc. Dataloom, Inc. Deutsche Post AG Documentum EADS Airbus SA empolis Enigma Incorporated

Excelergy Corporation eXcelon Corporation Extensibility Extricity Software First Call Corporation Hewlett-Packard

Company IBM Corporation Informix Software, Inc. Infoteria Inc. Innodata Corporation Interwoven, Inc. IPNet Solutions ITEDO Software GmbH Jamcracker Logistics Mgmt Institute Mediaplex Mercator Software Microsoft Corporation Netegrity, Inc. Netfish Technologies Netscape/AOL NextPage, LC NII Enterprise Prom.

Assoc. Nimble Technology NIST ObjectSpace Pearson Education

Planet 7 Technologies Popkin Software & Systems Reuters Limited Sabre SAP Sequoia Software

Corporation Silverstream Software SoftQuad Software Inc. Software AG Sterling Commerce StreamServe, Inc. Sun Microsystems Synth-Bank The Tamalpais Group, Inc. Thomas Technology

SolutionsU. S. Defense Information

Systems Agency Virtual Access Networks Visa International Wavo, Inc. webMethods, Inc. Whitehill Technologies, Inc. Xerox Corporation XML Global XMLSolutions Corporation Xyvision Enterprise

Solutions Inc.


Board of Directors

• Colin Evans, Intel Corporation

• Patrick J. Gannon, OASIS

• Jim Hughes, Hewlett Packard

• Una Kearns, Documentum

• Christopher Kurt, Microsoft

• Norbert H. Mikula, DataChannel

• Simon Nicholson, Sun Microsystems

• Michael Weiner, IBM Corporation


Alliances & Partners

• MOU – IEC, ISO, ITU, UN/ECE & OASIS

• UN / CEFACT

• OMG

• IDEAlliance

• ???


OASIS Initiatives

• Technical Standards

• ebXML

• XML.org

• The XML Cover Pages

• CGM-Open Member Section

• Topic Maps Member Section

• LegalXML Member Section


OASIS Standards Process

• Standards are created under an open, democratic, vendor-neutral process– Any interested parties may participate, comment

– No one organization can dictate the standard

– Ensures that standards meet everyone’s needs, not just largest players’

• Open to all interested parties

• All discussion open to public comment

• One organization/one vote

• Resulting work is guaranteed to be representative of the industry as a whole, not just any one vendor’s view


Progression of Technical Work

1. Any three OASIS members propose creation of a technical committee (TC)

2. Existing technical work submitted to TC; or TC starts work at the beginning

3. TC completes technical work, then votes to approve work as an OASIS Committee Specification

4. TC votes to submit the Committee Specification to OASIS membership for consideration

5. OASIS membership reviews, approves the Committee Specification as an OASIS Standard


Active Technical Committees• Access Control (XACML)

• Biometrics

• Business Transaction Protocol (BTP)

• Conformance

• Customer Information (CIQ)

• Directory Services (DSML)

• DocBook

• ebXML CPPA

• ebXML IIC

• ebXML Joint Committee

• ebXML Messaging

• ebXML Registry

• Election Services

• Entity Resolution

• Human Markup

• Localization

• Provisioning Services (PSML)

• RELAX NG

• Rights Language

• Security Services

• Topic Maps for Geography & Language

• Topic Maps Published Subj.

• Topic Maps Vocabulary

• Universal Business Language

• Web Services Interactive Applications

• Web Services for Remote Portals

• XSLT Conformance

• CGM Open (member section)

http://oasis-open.org/committees/committees.shtml

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives


Convergence Activities

• Vendors Migrate Specifications to OASIS– WSXL from IBM WSCM TC

– XOCP from BEA Systems BTP TC

– xCBL from Commerce One UBL TC

– ITML from Jamcracker PSML TC

– CRML from MSI Business Sol. CIQ TC

• Standards Converge at OASIS– AuthXML and S2ML SAML

– TREX and RELAX RELAX NG

– WSUI and WSXL WSCM

– XRPM, ADpr, ITML PSML


ebXML

• Joint OASIS, UN-CEFACT Initiative for the creation of an e-commerce framework

• Over 2500 participants from 60 countries

• Collaborated with other initiatives and standards development organizations; built on the experience and strengths of existing EDI knowledge

• Enlisted industry leaders to participate and adopt ebXML infrastructure


ebXML delivers by

• Using the strengths of OASIS and UN/CEFACT and DISA/X12 to ensure a global open process

• Build on business process learned from decades of EDI experience, using lightweight XML syntax

• Creating the technical specifications with the world’s best experts

• Collaborating with other initiatives and standards development organizations


Continuing ebXML Work

• Specifications completed May 2001; available at www.ebxml.org

• Infrastructure work continuing at OASIS– Messaging

– Collaborative Partner

– Interoperability, Implementation, Conformance

– Registry & Repository

– http://ebxml.org

• Content-related work continuing at UN/CEFACT– Business Process

– Core Components

– http://ebtwg.org


XML.org

• Central clearinghouse for accessing XML schemas, vocabularies & related documents

• Self-supporting, non-commercial resource created by & for the community at large

• Foster collaboration within & between industries

• Features:– XML.org Registry

– XML.org Catalog

– XML.org Portal

– xml-dev mail list

• http://xml.org


XML.org


The XML Cover Pages

• The authoritative resource for XML info– News

– Press Releases

– Product Information

– Specifications

– Whitepapers

• http://xml.coverpages.org


The XML Cover Pages


Member Sections

• Current Member Sections– CGM Open

– Topic Maps

– LegalXML

• Member Sections are Vertical Communities within OASIS– Self Governance

– Steering & Coordination Committee

– Retain "Identity" in marketplace

– Specialized Events & Lists


Case Study

• LegalXML – Independent Consortium– Founded in 1998

– Focused on Developing Legal & Regulatory Information Standards

• Statutes & Bills

• Regulations & Agency Notices

• Cases, Citations & Court Filings

– Strong Membership Interest• Federal & State Legislatures, Agencies & Courts

• Law Firms

• Legal Publishers & SW Developers

• Non-Legal Corporations

• Academia


Case Study

• LegalXML – Independent Consortium– Struggled with "Start-up" problems

• Volunteerism insufficient to manage logistics

• Limited breadth of expertise in membership

• Competing for other membership dues

• Credibility limited by "newness" & lack of track record


Case Study

• LegalXML – Member Section– "Merged" with OASIS in February 2002

– Formed Member Section Steering Committee

– Converting Working Groups to OASIS Technical Committees

– Maintain "Brand" & "Identity"


Case Study

• LegalXML – Member Section– Leveraging & Benefiting from:

• Established Technical Process

• Breadth of Member Expertise

• OASIS' Recognition & Reputation

• Established Infrastructure & Administration

– Providing Benefits to OASIS Membership• Domain Expertise

• Addressing Common Business Issues


The international presence of OASIS, especially the expertise and resources

that its members bring, is very significant and accelerates global

development efforts such as ebXML

Ray Walker, United Nations/CEFACT”“


Developers of XML vocabularies and schemas look to OASIS as a

central community resource that is open and objective.

Lon PilotHR-XML.ORG

”“


?

?

?

?

An Invitation… • You are invited to work within the OASIS Standards Development

framework to foster convergence of Tax Information Standards– Develop Tax Industry Information Standards

– Draw upon experts from around the world

– Reduce confusion among customers & constituents

– Work within an Open Process

– Leverage existing infrastructure

– Leverage existing standards

– Deliver quickly & effectively

– Avoid redundant logistics

– Reduce membership

costs

TIGRES

OASISCore XMLStandards

IRS, IR,ATO, Etc.

TaxMLOASIS

Tax XMLTCs


For More Information…

• Patrick GannonCEO, OASIS

+1.978.667.5115

[email protected]

http://www.oasis-open.org

• Dale WaldtProgram Development, OASIS

+1.585.703.8440

[email protected]