Tax report for Canada

Damon dh at list-gnucash-user.usrbin.org
Thu Apr 21 05:12:23 EDT 2011


Hi!

Thanks for the feedback.  That's pretty much what i figured - the old
functionality that was useful to me was accidental... it always kind of
looked that way.

I like the idea of building a tax report system specific to Canada, but
i would imagine that's a fairly long-horizon option.

However, i thought of another potentially simple way of getting what i
need, that would be useful for other users in countries with no specific
tax report yet.  I'm thinking of filing this as a feature request, but i
thought i'd check in here quickly first to see if it's feasible.

Really, i realised that everything that i need can be found in the basic
`Account Summary' report - or perhaps for more details i might find the
general `Transaction Report' useful in some cases.

The only problem, then, is that manually selecting all the relevant
accounts on the `Accounts' tab each time would be a huge pain, and just
listing all accounts and scanning through for the relevant ones is
tedious (though doable).

What about, on the `Accounts' tab for any report, providing a button to
quickly select all accounts that are marked tax-related?

I realise that this is kind of extending what the `tax-related' flag is
meant to do, but it seems like it might be useful enough to consider.
It's one quick way of logically grouping a series of accounts that might
be spread across several account trees.

More generally, i wonder about providing some sort of `account group'
concept where you could create arbitrary groups of accounts that don't
necessarily have to be in the same tree.  That could be a useful way to
quickly select a group of accounts you often report on.  You'd need an
interface to create a group and add accounts to it, and then a way of
selecting a group from the report setup accounts tab to select all
accounts in the group.

I don't know how much demand there would be for any of this.  It would
certainly make my life easier.  I thought i'd just toss it out there on
the list and see if anyone else thinks it would be useful, before taking
it any further.

Another immediate workaround i might use is the `account code' which i
don't really use for anything right now other than some basic sorting.
That way i can include the account code in my summary reports and use it
to quickly see which accounts are tax-related.  That will at least allow
me to move on from 2.2 at last.

-damon

On 20 Apr, J. Alex Aycinena wrote:

> 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
> >
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