Sales Taxes & Budget

[Phil Davis]

Hello everyone,

I am new to GnuCash, so thanks to everyone that has created this program.
It seems to be exactly what I need.


So, I am trying to figure out how I can do something, that seems a little
unorthodox:

    I need to keep track of both budget items and sales taxes.

So, let me explain:

First, I need to create and stick to a budget.  You know, a typical budget
for household items, groceries, mortgage, etc... the normal items that
people typically create a budget for.

Second, since I live in Texas, we do not have Income Tax.  Since the
Federal Government allows me to deduct Sales Tax on Schedule A, I need to
keep track of my sales tax.

The conflict arises in the fact that I don't want a budget for sales tax...
I create a budget for clothing or groceries or whatever, I don't have set a
plan to spend $15 in taxes this week... I have a plan to spend $50 on
clothing, but the government takes some of my money (tax), so I really only
have 45.45 to spend on clothes (45.45 + 10% sales tax (4.55) = 50.00
(assuming 10% sales tax, in reality, it is 8.25% most places, occasionally
only 6.25% depending on the location).  However, I still want to budget 50
for clothing and then indicate that I spent $50 in clothing of which 4.55
was sales tax.

The closest I can think of is to create a sub-account for sales tax for
each expense account, but that would be painful to set up and very painful
to create a report (or so I think at this point... remember I am new to
GnuCash)

Alternatively, I can create an account for sales tax, and then only budget
45.45 in clothing... but I really don't want to keep track of it that
way.... what if I find a deal where my sales tax is only 6.25% (instead of
8.25%)?  That means I have a little extra to spend.

What I really want is to indicate 50 was spent on clothing, 4.55 of that 50
was attributed to sales tax. Then, I could check my actual expenses vs the
budget and keep track of the sales tax so I can report that on my taxes.

Is there any way to do this? or is there a better way?

Thanks,

Phil