Adding a Payroll calculator

[Andrew Sackville-West]

Conrad Canterford wrote:
<< snipping>>
> Jay,
> On my very quick look at what you had there, it makes various
> assumptions about the structure and nature of the payroll deductions.
> Not adaptable to different structures as they exist in different
> countries. For example, most of our tax deductions work a graduated
> scheme, which does not lend itself to a flat-rate percentage calculation
> (and for added complication, often includes a tax-free amount). Other
> deductions work as a fixed percentage of the total (like you appear to
> be showing).

Still other deductions are based on units of work (hours usually). For 
example, in WA state you collect from employees at a rate per hour for 
L&I and also accrue liability for employer at another rate per hour. 
Some of those employees are salaried and have no set hours and in that 
case you have to know to collect on 160 hours per month regardless of 
what hours they work. Also, many taxes hage "wage bases" above which the 
tax does not apply... .
> 
> Your also seem to require the accounts person to know/calculate the
> appropriate percentage each time (or rely on the fact that it hasn't
> changed from last time) - that is all good for permanent employees with
> very little variation, but does nothing for people employing casual
> staff for example, where their earnings may vary from week to week.
> 
> For reporting purposes, you will almost certainly need to record how
> much of each deduction you take from each employee. This could probably
> be done in accounts within the gnucash account tree, and might not be
> that hard, but you'd need to think about how that was structured. I
> admit to having no concept whatsoever how these things are handled in
> countries other than my own (I've never employed staff anywhere but
> here).

Some agencies want reporting based on when work was performed and some 
want it based on when wages were paid.
> 
> I guess what I'm saying is that such simple approach does not really
> solve the problem. Having said that, it might nevertheless provide a
> basis for someone else to work on to provide a more generic approach.
> I'm actually envisaging something along the lines of a plug-in module
> (specific to each country) which calculates those percentages for you
> for all the taxes and deductions. Having not seen any code, I cannot say
> how practical that might be.

I have to agree that the problem is definitely NOT simple. However, 
soemthing is better than naught.

A
> 
> Conrad.
> 
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