Sales Taxes & Budget

[Phil Davis]

Thanks, but that is exactly what I am trying to avoid...

Basically, I want to set up a bunch of jars and put my pay check in the
jars... $50 for clothing, 100 for food, etc... when I am done, I have my
budget... I only have so much in each jar (budget) and that money has to go
to all expenses for that category... to include tax... I don't have a jar
for tax... it is not a budget item.

Phil


On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM, jcard21 xxxxxxx
<jcard21+gnucash at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 11:08 PM, Phil Davis <phil at coolbluedesigns.com>
> wrote:
> > 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
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> Phil,
>
> You spent $45.xx on clothing; you spent $4.xx on sales tax; for a
> total of $50.00.
>
> • Expense:Clothing $45.xx
>
> You did NOT spend $50.00 on clothing.
>
> The $45.xx will go in the Expense:Clothing account.
> The $4.xx will be divided between:
>
> • Expense:Taxes:__ Sales Tax (specify the state name)
> • Expense:Taxes:__ Sales Tax (specify the county name)
> • Exp3ense:Taxes:__ Sales Tax (specify the local name)
>
> In my situation, I pay State and County sales tax (no local), so I
> split the sales tax between State and County, according to the
> appropriate percentages.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> PS: For budgeting, leave the sales tax Budget amounts zero.
>
> --
> jcard21
>