Tax Tables - an illustrated primer?

[John Ralls]

> On Sep 3, 2017, at 4:40 AM, Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
> 
> On zondag 3 september 2017 06:29:48 CEST Christopher Lam wrote:
>> Hi Users & Devs,
>> 
>> I'd like to gather data on how Business > Tax Tables are currently being
>> used by users. Tutorial is rather blank on this; says "set up your tax
>> tables", "choose name, entries and percentage or amount", and in doubt,
>> seek an accountant who usually doesn't use gnc.
>> 
>> From my understanding, Tax Tables are mainly used to *automatically*
>> calculate various county and state taxes as applied to business invoices
>> and bills... but it's rather confusing that:
>> - menu is labelled 'Sales Tax Tables' but the tables are designed for both
>> sales & purchase taxes
> 
> True. I have wondered about this also. I assume "Sales Tax" is a standard term 
> in American English ? It helps to consider that the difference between an 
> invoice or a bill is only from which side of the transaction you look at it. 
> The bill you receive from your vendor is an invoice from their point of view. 
> Strictly speaking they are all invoices, but the name bill was adopted in 
> gnucash to make the differentiation easier (I was told it's a common name for 
> invoices you have to pay).

Yes, though it’s more “American law” than “American English”, and in the sense of “American” as “applying to the USA”, a usage that sometimes annoys our Canadian cousins. The USA has no national consumption or (for most products) transfer taxes. Many states impose a "sales tax” on the final transfer of a good to the end user/consumer, and many of those states allow smaller jurisdictions (it’s counties in California) to have a local rate higher than the state’s. The tax is collected by the seller (hence “sales tax”) and remitted to the state periodically (usually monthly). 

“Bill” in the accounting sense and “Invoice” are generally interchangeable in normal usage.

As to “sales” and “purchase” tax, I suppose that if there’s an actual distinction there it would have to be which party remits the tax to the state. In California the law says that a transfer of a good to an end user is taxable. If the seller is under the state’s jurisdiction then they’re responsible for remitting the tax, but if not then the buyer is. There’s a even a box on the annual state income tax form for paying the sales tax on items that one purchased out or state.

Since we’re about to do a new major release this would be a good time to change the nomenclature to something more generic if we want, or we could translate “Sales _Tax Table” in en_GB.po to “VAT/GST Table” and leave it as is for the “C” locale. Amusingly the tooltip for that is "View and edit the list of Sales Tax Tables (GST/VAT)” and isn’t translated in en_GB.po.

Regards,
John Ralls