How to register Japanese VAT

[Mike or Penny Novack]

>>
>>Thank you, for your information.
>>"AUTOMATICALLY" means that, for example,  when I enter an expense
>>record which is "take a taxi spend 630 JP YEN", Gnucash should
>>automatically make two records which are  "take a taxi 600 YEN" and
>>"payed VAT 30 YEN". Does Gnucash have this function ?
>>I know it can do if I create a vendor record for a taxi and make a
>>bill for the taxi. What I need is every expense entry makes VAT
>>record automatically, even though it doesn't have a bill record.
>>Currently I use "SPLIT" function and enter two records, expense detail
>>and VAT, every time. It's  really annoying.
>>
>>    
>>
I am going to put this another way. Let me start by pointing out that I 
do NOT know how Japanese VAT works for personal expenses. Maybe it is 
really simple, that it applied to EVERYTHING you might spend money on 
and at the same rate and with simple (normal) rounding rules.

So I will instead discuss this in terms of "sales tax" which many of our 
states have (including the one where I live). And for which the rules are:

1) Does NOT apply to everything purchased. Some things are exempt and 
even then by complex rules. For example (in this state) inexpensive 
clothing is not taxed, only items above a certain price, and what counts 
as clothing vs "accessories" not completely obvious.

2) The rate is NOT the same for everything. For example, food bought in 
a restaurant isn't taxed at the same rate as food bought in the food 
store. But again, what counts as "food" has complxx rules. That loaf of 
bread isn't taxed but that bottle of soda is. So on your receipt form 
the food store you generally have a "taxable items" amount.

3) The amount isn't a simple multiply by percentage and round off by the 
rules of ordinary arithmetic. The state gets any fraction of a penny. 
That means the amount on the bill might depend on whether all taxable 
items figured together or separately. So if you walk into the store and 
buy X (a taxable item) and then walk back in to get Y (also taxable) 
might well be a different amount of tax than if you came up to the 
counter with X and Y together. BTW, whether tax is figured on each item 
separately or on the aggregate of taxable items purchased together could 
give different results even in jurisdictions where it IS a simple 
"multiply and round off by the rules of arithmetic" << because 
rounded(A) + rounded B does not necessarily equal rounded (A + B)

You expect automatic calculation for THAT?

This is like anything else, you enter the transaction. A split 
transaction if a taxed item and you are tracking that, NOT considering 
it as part of the expense of the goods bough) << might do that here in a 
state that does not have a state income tax and you are itemizing on 
your Federal return and claiming a deduction for state sales tax  and so 
need to document --- you can't do both state sales tax and state income 
tax and the latter is almost always larger>> You get the data for that 
from the sales slip/receipt and that is what you would want to enter, 
what you actually paid at the store, not what gnucash or any other 
accounting package computes the tax should have been.

The reason that the business package does have an automatic feature is 
that in this case one expects a high volume of transactions that will be 
treated the same. But I doubt gnucash can handle more than the simple 
situation, everything IS taxed and taxed the same. It isn't a "point of 
sales" system as a store might have at the register keeping separate 
what is taxed and what not and at what rate and coming up with a total 
tax to be added to the bill. <<and the "point of sales" system would 
likely also feed the inventory system as well as the accounting system>>

Michael D Novack