2.3.15/tax package: basic questions

[J. Alex Aycinena]

Jannick,

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Jannick Asmus" <jannick.news at gmail.com>
> To: gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org
> Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:21:56 +0200
> Subject: 2.3.15/tax package: basic questions
> Hi,
>
> I'm using the brand new v2.3.15 on WinVista and I had a look at the very welcomed enhancements of the tax module. As a German user I would like to have GnuCash provide me with the figures for my monthly VAT report to the tax authority and my yearly income tax statement.
>
> I have the following questions / remarks on the current version of the tax module which I think is really a good improvement in comparison what we had before.
>
> 1 - The account tax info do not seem to be exported to sql. Is that right?
>

I'm responding on the user list as someone else suggested would be
more appropriate for this question. The US Tax Report, if that is what
you are referring to, can be exported either as an html file or as a
txf file. The txf file is a semi standard that used to be used in the
US quite extensively as a format to take tax related data out of a
financial system (e.g., Quicken) into a tax preparation system (e.g.,
TurboTax). This 'standard' had been started by Intuit (owner of
Quicken) but now seems to be abandoned (last update, 2004). However it
is still used. I'm not sure what you mean by exporting to sql.

>
> 2 - The currency of the tax report is USD by default and cannot be changed, whereas non-USD values should be converted to USD. In my German version the subtotals per account are displayed in EURO as additional info, but the subtotals in USD are 0, although I do have FXRs EURO/USD in my currency database. Note that the base currency of my gnucash-file is EURO.

As it stands now, the Tax Report and the assignments of tax codes to
accounts that is done through Edit->Tax Options is only applicable to
US Income taxes which must be filed in USD (which is why the tax
report is USD by default and cannot be changed). The only exception is
if your locale is de_DE, you can get a German version which I believe
is something of a prototype (not fully functional?) if the software is
built in a certain way. The German version is not restricted to USD.
You must not have built from source to be running in a de_DE locale
and see the US version (you mentioned Windows so I expect you
downloaded a pre-built version). The US Tax Report should be
converting all non-USD amounts to USD using either the transaction
currency exchange rate or a rate from the exchange rate table (if it
finds one - otherwise it prints 0 as the converted amount with a
warning). If it doesn't do this, it is a bug and this should be
reported.
>
> Q: Shouldn't there be a choice of the base currency of the tax report? Default = base currency of gnucash-file.

See comment above.
>
> Q: What's wrong with the currency conversion?

See comment above. If it is not converting, I would like to know how
you've set it up to understand why.
>
>
> 3 - Running the German locale the tax files related to the German tax regime (e.g. txf-help-de_DE.scm, txf-de_DE.scm) do not seem to be loaded.
>
> Q: How can that be amended?
>

You have to build from source with a configuration switch set
(something like '--enable-local-tax', I think but can't remember
exactly at the moment).
>
> Last but not least let me say that I am not a programmer and my knowledge on software and file handling is limited. I am rather on ordinary tester putting 'nasty' questions which I hope can be helpful.
>
> Thx for your replies.
>
> /J.
>

Alex