Some newbie questions

[Tommy Trussell]

On 2/25/07, Gerald Lopez <peninjau at gmail.com> wrote:
>    1. I have to account for tax (GST in New Zealand) on virtually all
>    transactions. This works fine with Invoices and Bills from the
>    Business>Customers> menu; but when I do simple transactions using my current
>    (or checking) account, there doesn't appear to be any provision for GST, and
>    transactions in that account don't update the GST tax account like Invoices
>    and Bills do. Do I need to create Vendors and Customers for all my
>    transactions in order to reflect GST apportionment?
>    2. Is GST and Income Tax an expense, as assumed by gnucash wizard - or
>    is it a drawing, as assumed by a local proprietory software (Cashbook
>    Complete)? If I continue with it being an expense, it looks like I will need
>    to deduct the taxes from the totals when I create reports.

I don't know the answer myself (I'm in the US), but I was curious
whether this had been covered before. Some Googling turned up some
archived email list messages, and one of those pointed to GnuCash FAQ
item 6.6. Maybe this answers your question...

http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_do_I_handle_GST_on_invoices.2C_and_claim_GST_rebates_on_purchases.3F

(If that URL breaks in your email, just go to
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ and find the link to item 6.6 in the
contents.)

>    3. How do I changed my Invoice heading to the legally required "Tax
>    Invoice", and how do I change "Tax" to "GST" in the table?

It looks like this is answered in FAQ item 6.5 (just before the item above).