[GNC] When income is not income

[Stan Brown (using GC 4.14)]

Disclosure:: (A) is an accounting question, not a GC question. I hope
some folks will find the question interesting enough to comment on
anyway. (B) is, I think, a GC question.

(A) Annuity

Last year I bought an annuity for a single payment of $P. I will receive
a fixed $M each month until I die. Regardless of when that happens,
there is no payout to any beneficiaries.

I set this up as Assets:Investments:Annuity with an initial value of $P,
transferred directly from my traditional IRA.
    debit $P:  Assets:Investments:Annuity
    credit $P: Assets:Investments:Traditional_IRA
When I received the first payment last month, I did this:
    debit $M:  Assets:Checking Account
    credit $M: Assets:Investments:Annuity
But now I'm having second thoughts.

This annuity isn't an investment like a mutual fund. While it has a
value, I can't touch that value ahead of the monthly schedule, and my
heirs (or creditors) get nothing. So I'm not sure that it makes any
sense to have it as an asset. Maybe I should have done this for the purchase
    debit $P:  Expense:Annuity_purchase
    credit $P: Assets:Investments:Traditional_IRA
and this for each payment
    debit $M:  Assets:Checking Account
    credit $M: Income:Annuity_Payout
That would reduce my total assets and my net worth by $P, but I'm
getting uneasy about having included the annuity in Assets in the first
place.

Comments?

At least this has the virtue of including the annuity income in my
Income Statement. But that leads to another issue ...

(B) IRA

Right now withdrawals from my IRA are simple transfers:
    debit $X:  Assets:Checking Account
    credit $X: Assets:Traditional_IRA (same amount)
While I think that's the right thing from an accounting standpoint, it
has a drawback: the Income Statement doesn't show those withdrawals as
part of my income, even though the tax man treats them as income and
they should be in any statement I provide when applying for credit.

Is there a way to eat my cake and have it? Maybe I could create an
account Income:IRA_Withdrawals and a contra account
Expense:IRA_Withdrawals_Contra. When making a withdrawal of $X I would
record the transaction in the previous paragraph and also this:
    credit $X: Income:IRA_Withdrawals
    debit $X:  Expense:IRA_Withdrawals_Contra
I could exclude the contra account from the income statement to produce
an Income Statement containing all my income that's subject to tax. But
this seems kind of rigmarolish, and I'm wondering whether there's a
better way.

-- 
Stan Brown
Tehachapi, CA, USA
https://BrownMath.com