HST remittance formula

[Ron Stone]

Thanks Derek - 

Can I assume that there is a balance-as-of-date function but it is not in scope from the interface - or does it simply not exist? If it does, could this calculation be done as a callable function added to fin.scm?

Ron


On Jul 22, 2014, at 12:25 PM, Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Alas, I don't think this would be doable from the SX interface because
> you're missing one key function:  "balance-as-of-date()", which you
> would need in order to compute the amounts you need.  :(
> 
> So I don't think it would fit into SXes.
> 
> Now, you may be able to write a "report" that would compute it for you
> and even add the necessary transactions for you.  For example, you could
> look at the "Close Books" feature as a base for something that looks at
> balances, does something with them, and creates a transaction as a
> result.  Obviously the meat of the feature would need to be changed for
> you.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> 
> -derek
> 
> Ron Stone <ronstone at ncf.ca> writes:
> 
>> Hello all,
>> 
>> First - I am fairly new to GnuCash and, having heard about it for
>> years, wish I’d started sooner. It is a robust app and my hat is off
>> to everyone who has contributed.
>> 
>> My question is about Canadian HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) - a
>> combination of provincial sales tax and federal GST collected and
>> administered together in some provinces.
>> 
>> Small businesses can elect to use a ‘simple method’ for calculating
>> the HST they need to remit at the end of each period (in my case every
>> quarter). Instead of tracking every sale and every purchase to come up
>> with a number, they can remit a percentage based on total sales.
>> For example, in Ontario HST is 13%. The quick method might require
>> that I remit 7.5% of total sales. For businesses such as consultants
>> who do not have a lot of purchases, it means you actually keep some of
>> the HST (which becomes taxable income).
>> 
>> The 7.5% above was just a number to illustrate, but there is a
>> wrinkle. For most businesses (mine at least), the percentage you remit
>> is lower on the first $30,000 and then jumps on the rest of your
>> income for the year. Say, >=30k = 7.5%, and <$30k=8.5.
>> 
>> My question is if a formula could be written for a scheduled
>> transaction to calculate what I owe at the end of each quarter and
>> what I’ll have to track as income on my business taxes (the amount
>> from the HST collected that I remit and the amount that I keep). I
>> have not seen any examples of querying account data from a script, so
>> I’m not sure if it is doable. You would need to know how much you have
>> sold in the past quarter and how much of that is above/below the $30k
>> threshold.
>> 
>> I am using 2.6.3. 
>> 
>> If it is doable, and anyone cares to lend their expertise, it may help
>> document some powerful features of Gnucash.
>> 
>> Many thanks,
>> Ron
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> 
> -- 
>       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available