I want to track sales tax, but I also want the cost of an item to include sales tax - how?

[liz dodd]

On Thursday 30 October 2008 7:01:47 pm jgombos wrote:
> I'm interested in knowing how much VAT I pay, so I created Expense:Tax:VAT,
> and every transaction becomes a split transaction.  When I look at other
> expense categories, like Expenses:Food for example I see amounts less the
> tax.  

If you are "interested" then you export the data and use another tool eg a 
spreadsheet or your fingers to calculate.
If you have to report tax then you count it in your gnucash files with split 
entries.


> Suppose I want to know the total food expenses including VAT.  I can't
> simply add the food balance to the VAT balance, because other purchases
> cause VAT expenses as well.  How can I accomplish this, without creating a
> separate VAT subaccount for every expense account?  


(total food expenses) + (VAT rate)
so if VAT is 17.50%
TFE + 17.5% = actual expended funds.


Don't make the mistake of having your business accounts muddled up with your 
personal accounts - perhaps you are doing this here 
OR make the mistake of incredible complexity in the accounts when you could be 
doing the same calculation once on the total instead of one thousand times on 
each individual entry.

There is lots of qualified and unqualified assistance on this list, so a 
little more information from you will help you to get an answer closer to 
your needs.