Tracking internet purchases to verify that I have paid applicable sales tax.

[Michael Wagner]

I would like to track internet purchases so that I can verify that I have
paid all applicable state sales taxes for each purchases - but I'd also
like to track those purchases in Expense categories that are not
necessarily sub accounts.


If I buy a wrench from a local store with a credit card, I credit my
Liability:MasterCard account, and debit my Expenses:Hardware:Tools account.
At some later date, I will credit my Bank:Checking account and debit my
Liability:MasterCard .

So the cash flows from my Checking account to my MasterCard account  to
my  Expenses:Hardware:Tools account. When both transactions have been
entered, my Checking account has been credited, and my
Expenses:Hardware:Tools has been debited, and my MasterCard account has
been debited and credited in the same amount, and the balance is unchanged.

Maybe what I want to do can't be captured by double entry bookkeeping.

I'd like to create an "Expenses:Internet Purchases" account, and an
"Expenses:Internet Sales Tax" account so at the end of the year, I can tell
my home state, "I spent $10,000 on the internet and I paid  $400 on taxes
for those purchases, so I don't owe you any taxes on those purchases."

But think that means that I would be double debiting both my
Expenses:Internet Purchases account and my Expenses:Hardware:Tools  account.

If (for example) I try to do the following:

1)  Credit my Liability:MasterCard and debit (in a split) and
debit Expenses:Internet Purchases account and an Expenses:Internet Sales
Tax.
2)  Credit my  Expenses:Internet Purchases account and debut my
Expenses:Hardware:Tools
3)  When I pay the bill, credit my  Bank:Checking account and debit my
Liability:MasterCard

That almost works, but after all transactions are entered, then I have
debited and credited my Internet Purchases account, so it's got a zero
balance. That doesn't help me.

If I create Expenses:Internet Purchases:Hardware:Tools   as a sub account
of Expenses:Internet Purchases, then the total reported in the
Expenses:Internet Purchases will be correct, but that means that I have two
un-related accounts tracking tools I purchased locally and tools I purchase
on the Internet.

Is there some simple way to solve this problem?


Mike

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"After I read the name Zarathustra in the anti-Semitic *Correspondence* my
forbearance came to an end. I am now in a position of *emergency defense*
against your spouse's Party. These accursed anti-Semite deformities *shall
not* sully my ideal!!"  - Friedrich Nietzsche, draft for a letter to his
sister
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