[GNC] Tax report options (flywire)

[Brad Morrison]

Hi Alex/all,

Thank you for the overarching explanations about how GnuCash Tax Report 
Options work and some of the issues behind that.

As I covered in my April 25 post 
(https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-April/106671.html), 
I have been trying to find US based FDIC insured banks that allow for 
transactional data to be downloaded in the OFX file format 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange). I have still 
not been able to find any that do, so I dug a bit deeper (the ICBA and 
several other banking associations did not respond to my inquiries) and 
noticed that the Financial Data Exchange group that hosts the "OFX Work 
Group" (https://financialdataexchange.org/ofx) seems to be quite out of 
date (copyright date at the bottom lists 2020 as the year, 2019 is the 
last date on the timeline, etc.). The Financial Data Exchange homepage 
(https://financialdataexchange.org/) looks better maintained and seems 
to have several news items from the last month, but also has that 2020 
copyright date at the bottom. FDX also has this Tax Data Exchange 
section 
(https://financialdataexchange.org/FDX/FDX/US-Tax/US-Tax-Forms.aspx?hkey=00bae613-7ec8-4c93-8e37-4712f09ae255) 
under the "Resources" tab, but it also looks a bit stale. You may be 
able to parse the technical information there better than I can, but it 
might be worth a look as that Tax Data Exchange page also seems to 
acknowledge what you are saying about TXF code being abandoned 
("Standards-based JSON files are superior to both CSV and TXF files CSV 
files require proprietary programs to process. Documentation and support 
of the TXF standard has dwindled and has now been fully-replaced by new 
standards.")

I do not know if GnuCash is already a member of FDX, but that maybe 
something to consider...?

Brad

On 5/17/23 12:08, Alex Aycinena wrote:
> On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 9:00 AM<gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org>  wrote:
>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: flywire<flywire0 at gmail.com>
>> To: Gnucash Users<gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>> Cc:
>> Bcc:
>> Date: Wed, 17 May 2023 17:17:45 +1000
>> Subject: Re: [GNC] Tax report options
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-May/107018.html
>> flywire wrote:
>>
>>> It is a spreadsheet process to add share/franking credits to etf/franking
>>> credits (Distribution:13Q) and similar for capital gains
>>> (Distribution:18H:18A) since the components are the same tax item. Any
>>> thoughts of how I could sum them in reports from different account trees?
>>>
>> lol In the heat of the moment preparing tax I'd never thought of just
>> transferring the total to the main account for that item.
>>
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-May/107020.html
>> flywire wrote:
>>
>>> ...there are 13 annual returns
>>>
>> To be clear, the items on the return map to different tax codes, eg
>> franking credits is 13Q on a personal return and 8D on a trust return. I'd
>> expect a table would need to be maintained for each return type. Australian
>> codes hardly change over time which likely means there would be no active
>> maintenance.
>>
>> Is it as simple as just using a unique tax code as account code and then
>> reporting by account code? (Assume one return type.)
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
> Some questions have been asked about  Tax Report Options in the past couple
> of weeks. I have been away and not able to respond or make comments. Let me
> make these points, which may not necessarily apply to this thread, but to
> others (sorry):
>
> - The Tax Report Options and associated US Income Tax Report are only
> intended to be used for US Income Taxes.
>
> - Some time ago, someone in Germany used the US version and made
> adjustments for use in Germany; I'm not familiar with that and don't know
> if it works and is being maintained.
>
> - Initially it was intended primarily to generate a file that could be
> uploaded to Income Tax Preparation software (and a report was sort of
> secondary) and so a key element of the design was the use of TXF codes that
> the Tax software could understand; the specification for those codes was
> abandoned some time ago so the ability to expand the system is not there
> unless we invented our own new TXF code (ugh!).
>
> - That is why there is nothing for Form 1116.
>
> - If someone wanted to do what was done for Germany for another
> jurisdiction, they would have to deal with this TXF issue; I certainly
> don't recommend trying it.
>
> - The US version could/should be re-written to not depend on TXF codes but
> this would not be trivial.
>
> - One can use the 'No Tax code' tag to include accounts on the US Income
> Tax Report, just not sorted by Form/Schedule; you could use the account
> name and/or description for that purpose for those accounts to give you
> totals (example: for Form 1116).
>
> - The system assumes that each 'book' (i.e., gnucash file) is for one
> reporting entity (individual, partnership, corporation, etc.) and that one
> file is not used to track the accounts of more than one tax
> reporting entity.
>
> - You can certainly use your account structure design and other available
> reports to get your tax information without using this system; in fact, if
> you use this system, you have to carefully design your account structure
> and do careful data entry to get the report to be useful.
>
> Alex
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