Imputed Income on (US) paycheck stub

[Michael Wagner]

"Virtual Income" is an apt description.

I am new to gnucash, so maybe my confusion is party about debits and
credits.

My paycheck, which doesn't have any imputed income, looks very much like
the Split Transaction example from the Concepts guide. All of the deduction
show up on the left in the check register (as debits), and the gross pay
shows up on the right (as a debit) with a transfer account of
"Income:Salary".  The sum of the debits is equal to the credit.

I like that way of looking at my paycheck pretty much, and I like one the
"one split transaction per paycheck" model. The final "Income:Salary"
credit is exactly what's printed on her paycheck stub.

I can make this work by adding an expense type called "Expense:Imputed
Income" and that all makes sense. But it's feels odd to call
"Imputed:Income" an expense.

If I enter two transactions per paycheck stub, I give up the nice "one
paycheck stub means one paycheck split transaction" mapping, and I still
need to debit something when I credit the "Income:Imputed Income" account.

If take the imputed income "off the books", then I think that I need to
subtract the imputed income from the "Gross Pay" that is calculated on her
paycheck  and enter that result into the "Income:Salary" credit. That's
means a quick "eyeball check" of paycheck and gnu split transaction
requires replacing that transaction. I'm numerically dyslexic - when I do
arithmetic in my head, I'm almost always wrong. :-)

One possibility that strikes me is to create an "Income:Imputed Income"
account, and debit the "Income:Salary" account and credit the
"Income:Imputed Income" account.

Does that make sense?

Will the calculations be correct? (I am still trying to understand debits
and credits, if that's no altogether obvious).


Mike

> From: AC <gnucash at acarver.net>
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Cc:
> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2015 07:09:57 -0700
> Subject: Re: Imputed Income on (US) paycheck stub
> On 2015-03-30 21:59, Michael Wagner wrote:
>> My wife's pay check includes a line called "Imputed Income" - I think
>> it's a tax artifice (the money doesn't show up under deductions or get
>> deposited anywhere, near as I can tell. I think it's way of taxing some
>> fringe benefits.
>>
>> It looks like math of the paycheck stub is
>>
>>      Gross Pay = Deductions + Deposit to Bank + Imputed Income
>>
>> How do I track "Imputed Income"? Is it an expense?
>>
>> Is it income account?

> The best way to describe it is virtual income.  She receives a benefit
> whose cash value is deemed to be the imputed income and then has to be
> taxed on that income even though no money reaches your accounts.

-- 
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