Tax report for Canada

[J. Alex Aycinena]

Damon,

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Damon <dh at list-gnucash-user.usrbin.org>
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:21:08 -0700
> Subject: Tax report for Canada
> Hello -
>
> I'm a Canadian citizen running a small business with income in both CAD
> and USD currencies, and all other transactions in CAD.  I use gnucash
> for all my personal and business accounting; i'm not however using any
> of the advanced business features - i have my own system for invoicing
> &c - just using it to track both business and personal income and
> expenses.
>
> The account structure i settled on long ago has four top-level accounts
> for personal income, expenses, assets and liabilities, a corresponding
> four top-level accounts for business, separate top-level accounts for
> GST-related income and expense, a couple of top-level accounts to track
> my mortgage separately, and finally an equity account for opening
> balances.  I'm not sure how technically `correct' it is but it's worked
> nicely for me.
>
> In almost all trees there are tax-related accounts, and i have each one
> (along with all "placeholder" parent accounts) marked as "Tax Related"
> in the tax options dialogue, with the blank form "Tax Report Only - No
> TXF Export" selected.
>
> In gnucash-2.2 i was able to use the "Tax Report & TXF Export" report at
> tax time to get a nice summary of all my taxable income and claimable
> expenses, both personal and business.  The tax report was obviously
> geared towards the US tax system, but it was flexible enough to show me
> summaries of all tax-related accounts in their own currencies for the
> selected period.

The prior version of the US Income Tax Report generated erroneous
information, under some circumstances, with no audit trail to show
where the reported numbers came from. Because of this it was difficult
to rely on the numbers in the report. The report was re-written with
the major assumption that, since it was for US Income Taxes, all
reported amounts are in USD as required by US tax law (providing an
audit trail of how non-USD amounts are converted). It is not intended
to be used with, nor appropriate for, any other tax jurisdictions.

>
> There was always a bit of weirdness with the USD income accounts (parent
> accounts missing from the report), but the total was still displayed
> properly so i could use the report come tax time.  It also seemed to be
> honouring my primary currency setting as the CAD accounts were all
> treated properly, and the only, minor, bugginess was in the USD
> accounts.
>
> Since upgrading to gnucash-2.4, the tax report has become completely
> useless for me:
>

I'm sorry for that but it is not intended to be used for Canadian
taxes. There are some people working on income taxes for Germany and
if anyone would be willing to work on reporting for Canadian Income
Taxes, I'm sure that would be welcome.

> - It seems to ignore *most* accounts in CAD.  It shows my USD business
> income accounts just fine, and for some reason it shows my entire "GST
> expenses" account tree (which is in CAD), but it doesn't show any other
> accounts in CAD.
>
> - For the few CAD accounts it does show, it shows their values converted
> to USD via the price editor data, instead of showing everything in the
> configured account currency.
>
> - Instead of a nice summary for each tax-related account, it shows a
> detailed list of transactions; which would be fine, if it worked
> otherwise, but a lot less convenient than the old summary view.
>
> I've been unable to see any real logic in which CAD accounts are
> selected for display.  The only thing i've noticed that may have some
> relevance is that the one CAD account tree that is shown is the
> top-level account sorted last in my register that is tax-related.  There
> is one more account below it but that one is not tax-related.  So it
> almost looks as though as the program travels down the register, it
> might be replacing each CAD top-level account tree with the next until
> it comes to the last one?
>

Actually, it selects all transactions for the selected date range for
all acounts that are indicated to be 'tax-related' irrespective of
currency. It simply sorts and prints and/or summarizes all these
transactions (converted to USD, if necessary, based on user options)
by account within 'tax code' within 'US Tax Form or Schedule line
number" for the tax year involved.

> When i look at the setup in the "Edit - Tax Options" dialogue, all of
> the accounts seem to be set up the same way as before, with "Tax
> Related" checked and the blank form (code 000) "Tax Report Only - No TXF
> Export" selected.  In the new "identity" section my Type defaulted to
> "Individual, Joint, etc"; changing that has no effect.
>
> It seems as though the good functionality from 2.2 was accidental, and
> now the tax report has been refined for US users but made useless for
> everyone else.  I'm guessing that i was using the tax report in a way
> that was not intended in 2.2 but just happened to work nicely for my
> needs.
>

You are correct - it was accidental and never intended for Canadian taxes.

> Am i missing something obvious about how to set up tax-related accounts
> and still get a report that's useful for a Canadian user?  Is there any
> way to access the tax report as it existed in gnucash-2.2?  Any other
> suggestions from Canadian or other non-US gnucash users?
>
> I've been trying out gnucash-2.4 and liking it, but for now, i have to
> downgrade to 2.2 each time i need a tax report.  I'm just glad the file
> formats are compatible!
>
> Thank you for any help!
>
> -damon
>