AW: 2.3.15/tax package: basic questions

[Jannick Asmus]

Hi Alex,

your reply is much appreciated!

J. Alex Aycinena wrote:
> Jannick,

>> 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?

[...]

> 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.
[...]
> I'm not sure what you mean by exporting to sql.

Let me clarify: The latest (unstable) versions export the gnucash file 
to an sql to have it as a database. In this kind of export the tax 
attributes associated to accounts are not exported.

>> 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,

... it is de_DE

> you can get a German version which I believe

... no, I can't :( This is why I am posting this.

> is something of a prototype (not fully functional?) if the software is
> built in a certain way.

I installed it on WinVista with the .exe-file someone nice built from 
source. Building is far beyond of my skills. So what I am having on my 
machine after installing 2.3.15 is a well built current version.

> The German version is not restricted to USD.

Thats true, but what I see in my version now:
- US tax codes as given in txf.scm and tfx-help.scm, but not as in their 
German version txf-de_DE.scm and txf-help-de_DE.scm (files I do have in 
my folders)
- USD as base currency of the tax report
- all USD amount are zero, subtotals are additionally displayed in EURO 
(which is my base currency)

> 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.

It does show the USD amounts as 0 with the alert that there is no FXR to 
be found. This is because in the price db there is no FXR to convert 
EURO to USD, but not vice versa.

A minor question - off-topic at the moment: Having EURO as basic 
currency of the gnucash-file, how can I get FXRs converting EURO to a 
non-EURO currency. The only possibility I can see is the other way 
round.

>> 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.

As I said above:
- EURO = base currency of gnucash file
- price database: only FXRs converting non-EURO to EURO (I don't know 
how to get the reversed FXR - but not important, at the moment)

>> 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).

As far as I can remember in previous versions the de-tax files were 
loaded when locale =de_DE. This is not the case any more. I am just 
asking why? If this is because the two German txf files are not finished 
yet, then I could try to help (this is the level I can contribute). E.g. 
there are tax categories in the txf-de_DE.scm which are not commented in 
the help file. When I remember correctly tests in previous versions this 
makes gnucash crash at start-up.

To make a long story short to make the new tax infrastructure useable 
for German tax reports (one of my gnucash dreams for a loooong time):

a - What is to be done to have gnucash load German txf-files if locale = 
de_DE?
b - How should txf-de_DE.scm and txf-help-de_DE.scm - at least 
formally - be enhanced such that there is no crash at fire up and the 
defined categories can be associated to accounts (what is the data set 
structure in the 2 mentioned files?) ... I could try to extend/adapt for 
the German VAT report at first.
c - How to make the base currency of the gnucash file the currency of 
the tx report? (Then the currency conversion problem is clearly 
obsolete.)
d - Export of tax codes etc. assigned to accounts to the sql of the 
gnucash-file

> Alex

/J.