Digital Financial Reporting

So I am digging into income from continuing operations before income taxes and I am uncovering some additional interesting stuff. I decided to look at all the filings for one SIC code and picked this one 7011 Hotels and Motels to take a look at.  Here is a list of what I found. The two interesting columns are the label used by the filer and the concept used to report that line item.  Of 29 filers looked at, 12 created extension concepts and 17 used a US GAAP Taxonomy concept for what seems to be exactly the same thing. Here are the labels and extension concepts for the 12 which created extension concepts for this line item:

• Loss before income tax (benefit) provision | asca:IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsBeforeIncomeTaxes
• Income (loss) from continuing operations | hot:IncomeFromContinuingOperationsBeforeTaxes
• Income before income taxes  | wynn:IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsBeforeIncomeTaxesAndNoncontrollingInterest
• Income before income taxes  | chh:IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsBeforeIncomeTaxes
• Income from operations before income taxes  | penn:IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsBeforeIncomeTaxes
• Income before income taxes | rlh:IncomeLossBeforeTaxes
• Income before income taxes  |mar:IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsBeforeIncomeTaxes
• Loss before income taxes  | mgm:IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsAll
• Income before income taxes | h:IncomeLossBeforeIncomeTaxes
• Loss before income tax expense | mhgc:IncomeLossBeforeIncomeTaxes
• Income (loss) before income taxes and discontinued operations  | get:IncomelossBeforeIncomeTaxesAndDiscontinuedOperations
• Income before income taxes | lvs:IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsBeforeIncomeTaxesAndMinorityInterest

Now here are the labels for SEC filers who did NOT create an extension concept, rather they use one of four US GAAP Taxonomy concepts:

• Income (loss) from continuing operations (HAS NO TAXES)
• Net earnings from continuing operations
• Net loss from continuing operations
• Income (loss) before income tax provision (benefit)
• Income (loss) before income taxes
• Income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes
• Income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes
• Income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes
• Income before income taxes
• Income before income taxes
• Loss (income) before income taxes
• Loss before income taxes
• Loss before income taxes and discontinued operations
• Net income before taxes
• Earnings (loss) before income taxes
• Income (loss) before income taxes
• Loss before taxes

Not a lot of difference between the line items really. 

Some say "earnings" some "Net income" some "Loss" some "Net earnings" some "Income (Loss)" some "Net loss".  But, all those terms refer to the same thing in essence: Income (Loss). 

Some refer to continuing operations specifically, others say "before discontinued operations", others do not use the term continuing operations, but they all actually refer to: continuing operations.

Some say "taxes" some say "income taxes" some say "tax provision (benefit)".  Again, they mean: income tax (benefit).

Further, here is a link to the SEC Division of Corporate Finance, Financial Reporting Manual. I did a quick search on "income from continuing operations" and came up with 22 hits.  This is a screen shot of one:

I would also point out that the terms "revenues", "gross profit" and "net income" are referred to also. Core financial reporting semantics.

So what is the point? It seems to me that the 12 filers on this list would be hard pressed to justify creating an extension concept for what amounts to "income from continuing operations before taxes", a term which 17 others here did us, and over 70% of all filers report.  Further, because of the high percentage of inappropriate extension concepts I am finding, that percentage of 72% will likely get higher if those extenision concepts are replaced with the proper concepts.  Plus, the fact that the SEC seems to require this concept to be reporting is pointing to this concept being part of the core financial reporting semantics.