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

[Buddha Buck]

You can try this:

2015-04-02 Buy new computer from Fly-By-Night Computers
  Credit Liabilities:Credit Card $1000
  Credit Liabilites:Unpaid Use Taxes $40
  Debit Expenses: Sales and Use Taxes $40
  Debit Assets:Computer Hardware $1000

(The last could also be "Debit Expenses:Computers $1000" if you don't treat
the computer as a capital asset).

Then at tax time, you can look at the balance in your unpaid use tax
account to see what you owe the State.



On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 6:27 PM Michael Wagner <mikepwagner at mikepwagner.net>
wrote:

> 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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