On Thursday, May 30th, the SEC reminded issuers that, under US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), certain entities must provide basic and diluted earnings per share (EPS) with equal prominence on the face of the income statement for each period presented in their annual and interim reports. For filings in which basic and diluted EPS have the same value and are presented only once on the face of the income statement, an entity should tag that amount twice using both tags.
The SEC advises that data be tagged using these GAAP Financial Reporting taxonomy elements:
- us-gaap:EarningsPerShareBasic
- us-gaap:EarningsPerShareDiluted
The SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis has observed the following incorrect tagging practices by filers in certain Forms 10-K or 10-Q submitted during 2024:
- creating custom tags including BasicAndDilutedEarningsPerShare to tag this amount
- tagging this amount only once using one of the two standard tags
- tagging this amount using a standard tag that was deprecated in 2022
Incorrect tagging for EPS would negatively impact the usability of the data. Tagging the amount only once will lose either basic or diluted EPS information. Filers are encouraged to review their tagging on EPS data and make necessary corrections. For more data quality reminders, visit the Staff Observations and Guidance webpage on the SEC’s website.
Source:
Incorrect Tagging for Earnings Per Share Data (sec.gov)
