It is 'absurd' to make businesses struggling during a recession to introduce a mandatory online tax filing system, says ICAS. The Scottish institute was responding to a consultation from HM Revenue & Customs on draft laws requiring all companies to submit statutory accounts and tax computations in a new data format - XBRL - by April 2011. ICAS says it objects to the additional burdens, costs and risks of this during the current recession, when many businesses are struggling to survive and should be concentrating their management expertise on the task of maintaining productivity and employment. Donald Drysdale, assistant director at ICAS, said: 'In his review of HMRC online services, Lord Carter of Coles recommended the use of XBRL, but emphasised that the new standard should not be imposed until it had been implemented and had bedded down. 'He also noted that other improvements would be needed before the service would meet the needs of tax agents.' He added: 'Many companies won't be ready for this. It is absurd to require businesses struggling during a recession to introduce this. XBRL has been used relatively sparingly to date, and HMRC plans to adopt inline XBRL (or iXBRL) would be the first large-scale implementation worldwide.' ICAS wants a gradual voluntary adoption of iXBRL until the new software has been properly tried and tested.