[Bug 710873] New Tax Declaration Info Report - multi-national, multi-purpose (private, business, ...)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Perhaps totally underestimating the scope of the problem.

For example, in the US there are 50 states, perhaps half of which have a 
sales tax. The problem isn't just that the rates would all be different 
but also that to what they apply (or not) would be different* and you'd 
need in addition a way to waive sales tax (for example, this customer is 
a non-profit that has filed a copy their exemption certificate with 
you). That's just for ONE country.

For doing this automated, leave to the folks (if any) trying to develop 
a "point of sales" system  (that would feed an accounting system like 
gnucash with the transaction already properly split).

Michael

* You might want an example of complexity? I am in Massachusetts. We 
have a sales tax but (in this state) it does not apply to items of 
clothing below a certain cost. If I bought a fancy coat for $300 it 
would be taxable. If I bought four dress pants at $80 per pair even 
though the total for those pair $320 that would not be taxable. If I 
went to a supermarket and bought various items of food (for home 
consumption), a bottle of laundry soap, and while there from the deli 
dept a sandwich to eat while in the store the food isn't taxed, the soap 
and the sandwich are.

   And proper calculation of sales tax amounts isn't to compute the tax 
individually on each item but to total up the taxables and compute the 
tax on that (like many states with sales tax the tax is rounded *up* to 
the nearest penny so if figured individually would average one cent more 
per item rather only rounding up once on the total). But I am far from 
certain all states work it that way.



Carsten Rinke wrote:

> Hi Frank,
>
> thanks for your comments. As I am not an accountant and also not 
> familiar with business taxation there are a couple of questions to 
> your comments - maybe even very basic ones.
>
> First the most general question:
> I am not sure if I should read a message like "this is not a good 
> idea" from your comments, because it is colliding with other already 
> ongoing work.
> My general goal is to have a common framework for taxation that can be 
> used for all (ok, let's say "most") tax countries and tax types. The 
> setup shall be adjustable per country.
> My hope is that the work already done for Germany can be 
> combined/merged with this. I volunteer to do the merging but I 
> probably need some help for that (once I have reached that point).
>
> My question: Do you agree or disagree that my approach can also be 
> used for your purposes?
>
> Other questions and comments I have inserted below.
>
> Gruss,
> Carsten