How to register Japanese VAT

[elvis]

On 11/03/14 00:47, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
>
>>>
>>> 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

Entering everything manually or through the invoicing system doesn't cut 
it for any volume of transactions above the trivial.

I have had a python script written that adds the Australian GST to every 
transaction in a .qif file, I imagine it can be easily changed to 
different fixed rates. I download the months transactions, run the 
renamer over it and import it using the qif import function.

I could post it here or link to it if anyone is interested..  it saves 
me hours and hours of manually putting in invoices every month.

Cheers

Lawrence


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