Why are my VAT accounts

[Dave H]

Seems to be details for the UK VAT 100 quarterly tax return - example form
at http://blogs.thesitedoctor.co.uk/tim/img/VATReturn-FrontPage.JPG
 (thanks Tim)  Basically Value Added Tax collected on behalf of UK
Governent HM Customs and Excise - similar to GST in Australia and State and
Federal Taxes in the US I guess.  Boxes 1, 2 & 3 are amounts owing to HM
and Box 4 is VAT/Sales tax paid by you.  Box 5 is the net amount
payable/refundable.

Cheers Dave H.

On 2 October 2015 at 03:39, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:

>
> > On Oct 1, 2015, at 1:10 AM, andy <contact at acorncoopsupport.org.uk>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 30/09/15 16:18, Derek Atkins wrote:
> >> Andy (et al),
> >>
> >> John Ralls
> >> <jralls at ceridwen.us>
> >>  writes:
> >>
> >>
> >>>> On Sep 29, 2015, at 2:05 AM, andy <contact at acorncoopsupport.org.uk>
> >>>>  wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi John,
> >>>>
> >>>> I'll ask my client if they still have a copy of the file pre
> >>>> upgrade. I only get their file at the end of year to do their
> >>>> reports. However I did set up their accounts with them and used the
> >>>> UK VAT Accounts option, did their accounts last year and the VAT
> >>>> appeared in the right reports.
> >>>>
> >>>> I've just tried to set up a new file (attached) I used the UK VAT
> >>>> Option and it automatically sets up VAT as an expense account and
> >>>> not a Liability (which it usually is even if actually a negative
> >>>> liability)
> >>>>
> >>>> I hope this helps. I am very happy to answer UK accounting questions
> >>>> to help develop GNUcash but I don't understand programming to help
> >>>> with that side.
> >>>>
> >>> Andy,
> >>>
> >>> Please copy the list on all replies.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks, I’ll have a look at the template. I still need to know from
> >>> what version of GnuCash your client upgraded to 2.6.7.
> >>>
> >> Is this a new file that was created with new templates?  Or is it an old
> >> file that somehow, magically "changed" account types across the upgrade?
> >> I would be EXTREMELY surprised if it's the latter.  That would be a
> >> significant bug if existing accounts in an existing data file magically
> >> got changed across a version bump.
> >>
> >> IF, however, it's a new data file created from a new template....  Then
> >> yes, I could see there being changes to the templates over time that
> >> could cause confusion.
> >>
> > Thanks for the replies. I've asked my client for the version they
> upgraded from.
> >
> > The first instance was an old file that was working fine last year when
> I received it. I then 'saved as' to create a new file and sent it back to
> them. At some point I upgraded and had to do a bit of work on their books
> and so got the file back. However when I sent it back to them they couldn't
> open it and needed to upgrade too. Once upgraded the file had the wrong
> account type (Thanks John for pointing that out).
> >
> > I have since created new files using the UK VAT Accounts template and
> they automatically create VAT accounts as an expense rather than a
> liability. So I assume this is a problem with the templates in the upgrade.
> >
>
> To make this easy for everyone to see what we’re talking about, that
> section of hierarchy created follows. All accounts are of type expense, and
> VAT is a top-level account. The account description provided is in quotes.
>
> VAT "HMRC Input/Output Accounts"
>    Input “Purchases, Box 4"
>    Output “Box 3”
>       EC “On reverse VAT purchases (Box 2)”
>       Sales "All, including zero rate UK/EC and World  (Box 1)”
>
> This hasn’t been significantly changed since the template was added in
> 2007 by a user contribution [1], though there was a bug fix [2] that didn’t
> affect how GnuCash uses the file.
>
> Unfortunately the structure doesn’t really reflect what the source said
> was the documentation [3]. The fact that the descriptions indicate specific
> boxes on some unnamed HMRC form lead me to think that these aren’t intended
> as the suspense accounts but instead are expense accounts for collecting
> material costs and goods sales numbers for reporting on a tax form. But I’m
> American and the way we handle and report sales taxes is completely
> different. Do those boxes reflect any tax form you’re familiar with? If so,
> what does it actually collect?
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
> [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=372948
> [2] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=738749
> [3] http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.6/C/gnucash-guide/appendixc_vat1.html
>
>
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