TIGERS (Tax Information Group for Ecommerce Requirements Standardization) was formed in October 1994 by FTA, the states, the IRS, and business and service provider representatives, initially to provide an overall coordinative body for advice and counsel on government technical implementation of American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-based tax-related electronic data interchange applications.
The TIGERS initiative is modeled on previous successful industry-cooperation models in the petroleum, pharmaceutical, power, and other industry sectors. It began with efforts to model standard transactions in the area of electronic data interchange (EDI), and is now involved in similar initiatives for eXtensible Markup Language (XML).
TIGERS seeks to ensure success by providing a forum for users to regularly meet together and agree upon on "conventions" for the national-standard formatting of electronic business data. For example, it develops agreements on data formats, the names of data items (Name, Address, etc.) and the like within tax-related electronic transmissions for the tax administration industry, and publishes the results of these agreements. This is done in full support of ANSI ASC X12 efforts, and under its umbrella.