Data Standard (XBRL) Benefits in Interagency Accounting Information Sharing: Qualitative Evidence from Indonesia

Interagency information sharing (IIS) is the capability of government agencies to acquire, own and apply information in common with others (Estevez et al., 2010). Prior literature has revealed the benefits of interagency information sharing (Dawes, 1996; Landsbergen Jr. & Wolken Jr., 2001; Ramon Gil-Garcia et al., 2007). One of the major benefits of implementing IIS is avoiding data inconsistency across the organization or agency (Fan et al., 2014; Mendes Calo et al., 2012). The inconsistency of accounting information (e.g. a company’s financial statements) can also happen across agencies when a business has to submit the same financial statements but in a different format to many agencies. In this case, a company has a chance to commit double accounting, which means an illegal accounting manipulation done usually by keeping different accountings, where one is used on tax declarations, and the other one is used for understanding the company’s real situation (Amat, 2019). In China, Fan, Zhang, & Yen, 2014) found that companies had to deal with several agencies separately to perform similar procedures, and this has resulted in inconsistent information among agencies about the same company, e.g., fake information to the administration of taxation for tax evasion. Another example in Indonesia can be seen in the case of Lippo Bank that falsely claimed a profit of IDR 98 Billion instead of reporting its loss of IDR 1.3 Trillion (Tempo.co, 2003). The newest case is the case of revenue recognition fraud at PT Garuda Indonesia that occurred for the 2018 financial statements (Prayoga & Purwanti, 2020). These cases might represent the iceberg tip of tax evasion as the Minister of Finance suspected many companies committed the double accounting (Tempo.co, 2006).