[GNC] How to record Personal income tax ?

[David Cousens]

Long,

Most personal income tax in many jurisdictions is based on a concept of
taxable income - i.e income sources which are subject to tax  and specific
expenses ( usually on the basis that they are incurred in earning that
income) which are able to be deducted from that income to provide a nett
income which is assessed for tax payable. What income is taxable and what
deductions are allowable will depend upon your local taxation legislation
for which you will need professional advice.

To be able to track and make provision so you have the money available when
taxes are due you will need to partition your income,i.e. have separate sub
accounts  for income subject to taxation and income which is not. Similarly
with expenses you need to establish subaccounts for expense categories which
can be legitimately and legally deducted from your taxable income and those
which can't.  the difference between your income subject to tax and
deductible expense sub account totals will then give you an estimate of the
taxable income against which you will be assessed. How accurate this will be
will depend on how accurate your partitioning of income and expenses is and
what other processes may affect your tax paid ( often rebates and tax
offsets for specific purposes.

Accountants usually create specific liability account to identify future
expenses that may be accruing like taxation. You may also want to set aside
money in a separate bank account specifically to pay you taxes when they
come due or you may want to keep the money in your bank account and just be
aweare that you have sufficient funds available to cover the taxes when they
become due. If you want to do this on a regular basis, e.g. monthly, you
will have to use the taxable income for the previous month and calculate the
tax you will expect to pay on the taxable income for that month. 
Transactions similar to the following will achieve that:
                                                         Dr                
Cr
Asset:Bank:Checking                                               xx
Asset:Bank:TaxProvision                      xx
Liability:Provision for Income Tax                              xx
Expense:Provision for Income Tax        xx

where xx is the amount of tax you have calculated is due for that month. If
you do not want to keep the funds in a separate account just delete the
first two splits in the above transaction. The expense account would have to
fall under the non tax deductible sub-account.

At the end of the year when your tax is actually calculated and assessed you
would make adjustments to the liability  and expense accounts  (and also
transfer to or from a specific asset account if you are using it) to reflect
any differences from your estimates during the year and then clear the
liability when you actually pay your tax  (debit the liability by the amount
paid and credit either your check account or a specific asset  account you
have created for the tax provision). 

This is just an outline of a general approach to deal with taxation accrual
as your income is accrued. It would have to be adjusted to suit your
specific circumstances and taxation legislation (and local accounting
practice) so consult your accountant for that. Details of how to calculate
the tax similarly depend on your specific tax laws.

David Cousens



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David Cousens
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