[GNC-dev] Interest

[David Cousens]

Mike,

I am adopting an approach of not addressing directly specific examples from a particular religious/culturual tradition
but of abstracting and illustrating general accounting approaches/principles that may be used using GnuCash to record
transactions for non-interest bearing loans which I hope may then be adaptable to the requirements in a specific case or
tradition. The danger is of course that it can be so general that users in those traditions may not be able to recognize
the applicability to their specific case.

I have made a start on such a page https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Non_Interest_Bearing_Loans which is standalone and not
yet linked into the main wiki system. I had some experience during my Accounting masters several years ago having to
prepare a thesis exploring accounting practices in India/Bangladesh which encompassed Shari'a law and the evolving
microfinance system there. However a brief read through the introduction to Jacob Neusner's "A History of the Mishnaic
Law of Damages", which came up in a reference to iron sheep contracts, has convinced me that while it may be
interesting, it may be unwise given my anticipated remaining life expectancy, to delve too deeply.

The good thing about the Wiki is that it is quite easily edited and can be commented on directly in the associated Talk
page or here on the forum, either User or Dev as appropriate and it should provide a good test bed for material for
later inclusion in the Tutorial and Concepts Guide. Once I am a bit further along with an outline and some content, I
will post a link inviting more general comment in the User forum, particularly from users from non-western traditions.
Greater depth would really require input from users with deeper accounting knowledge in the specific traditions which
may or may not be available.

David Cousens

On Sat, 2018-12-15 at 09:37 -0500, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
> On 12/14/2018 10:26 AM, David Cousens wrote:
> > Frank,
> > 
> > Will give it a go. Hamid is possibly right in that it will be too complex to
> > deal with the various possibilities but I will see if I can illustrate a few
> > simple cases.
> > 
> > David
> 
> It is definitely too complex. There are simply far too many variants 
> possible. And many of them would not be properly entered as loans << 
> except perhaps that "iron sheep" contract (illegal* in Jewish law 
> referring to no interest "loans" >> I mentioned which DOES have a 
> definite minimum amount that must be repaid >>
> 
> What I would suggest is that before any attempt is made to code or even 
> describe how in documentation is that a discussion be opened in the user 
> group where people can describe variants. While I am against us 
> "amateurs" giving accounting advice, this is a situation where standard 
> accountant training might not be useful and the average accountant 
> likely to respond "I never heard about an arrangement like that". Once 
> we have classified variants, we would be in a better position deciding 
> how to proceed.
> 
> Michael D Novack
> 
> * In effect partnership agreements where upon dissolution, capital 
> returned based on percentage  contributed, both partners share in 
> profits (per what is agreed) but one bears all the risk of loss. In 
> other words, a "loan" where instead of interest, the lender receives a 
> share of profits (but bears no risk if a loss).
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-devel mailing list
> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel