Tax Data Exchange

Whether you call it tax data delivery, tax data distribution, tax data communication, or tax data exchange...
this site is about explaining and supporting new industry standards that simplify and streamline getting tax data from tax document issuers to taxpayers, tax preparers, and their tax software.

About Ecosystem Services

Information

FDX (Financial Data Exchange)

OFX (Open Financial Exchange)

Resources

SDKs (Software Development Kits)

Docker Images

Services

Check out the Tax Data Exchange Services App

The New Industry Standards

Replace OCR and PDF parsing with a more reliable and simpler-to-implement technology. See details
Support democratization of tax document data so that all tax software companies can offer data import features
Expand to over 50 the number of tax documents and statements for which standards are defined
Standardize and improve API authorization and security.

The site references older standards to support migration to the newest standard, Financial Data Exchange (FDX).

What is Electronic Distribution?

Electronic distribution is making annual tax document data available in computer-readable form through one or more of the below channels.

Learn more

Advantages of Standards-Based Electronic Distribution

Eliminates need for manual data entry

Reduces the tedium and errors associated with manual data entry in the income tax return preparation experience.

Eliminates need for Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

OCR reliability is questionable. OCR requires proprietary solutions. You can replace digital-to-paper, paper-to-digital processes with processes that are digital from end-to-end.

Standards-based JSON files are superior to both CSV and TXF files

CSV files require proprietary programs to process. Documentation and support of the TXF standard has dwindled and has now been fully-replaced by new standards.

For many taxpayers, income tax preparation can be reduced to 3 steps.

(1) Collect digital documents, (2) import, and (3) review the results.

What are the Available Standards?

FDX

Financial Data Exchange

API & web download
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
Since 2019
Updated each October and January
Newest, modern standard

Open Financial Exchange

API & web download
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Since 2003
Updated annually in October
OFX consortium joined FDX in 2019

Tax Exchange Format

Web download
Structured text
Multi-line records
Special characters delimit logical records
Since 1991
Last updated 2013