Raffle tickets?

[Doug Laidlaw]

Further to what I just wrote, ask yourself:  Why am I bothering with Gnucash 
at all?  Why not simply see how much cash I have at the end of the day?

The purpose of accounting is to analyse your income and expenditure.  A 
business wants to know whether it is making money or losing money.  It needs 
to see whether it is within its budget, or whether there is a blowout 
somewhere, and in which area, so that it can take action.  As a home user, I 
usually ask: How much did that article cost me?  When did I buy it?

Both home and business users need to prepare reports for their accountant, and 
for the Taxation Office.

The purpose of accounting is to classify your transactions so that you can 
find that information as easily as possible.

In deciding what accounts to have, look at what figures you need to have in 
reports.  Anything that you will never need to look at again, can be dumped 
in "Miscellaneous".  If these raffle tickets cost you $5 or $10, and you are 
unlikely to buy any more in the fiscal year, their value as a deduction may 
not be worth the effort.  (Elizabeth, that is what we usually do with the 
Salvation Army's door-knock donation.)  If they are not deductible at all, 
there is no real reason to list them separately.  If you have a budgeted 
amount for gambling, or for gifts to charities, put it in there.  If you have 
both, my suggestion would be charities, because your chance of winning the 
raffle is usually pretty remote, and you bought the tickets as a form of 
donation.  Only charitable donations have tax consequences.

Those are the considerations I would apply in your shoes.

Doug L.

On Sunday 20 April 2008 6:04:13 pm Doug Laidlaw wrote:
> On Sunday 20 April 2008 3:37:09 pm Elizabeth Dodd wrote:
> > On Sun, 20 Apr 2008, Michael DeBusk wrote:
> > > I just bought several raffle tickets from the Junior Board of the
> > > hospital where I work. I'm not sure how to treat the expense. Is it a
> > > charitable donation? Is it gambling? Both? Neither?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your assistance.
> > >
> > > (Is there a better forum in which to ask such questions?)
> >
> > Reflecting the religious input into my upbringing, gambling.
> > The Methodists and the Salvationists can bear responsibility.
>
> Think of whether you will need to retrieve it later, and where you would
> look then.  What is it going to be for income tax purposes?  If it is
> deductible as a charitable donation, make it a charitable donation and link
> that account for your tax report.  If  not, I would treat it simply as a
> miscellaneous expense.
>
> I would even treat it as a petty cash expense and not show it at all.  When
> I withdraw cash, I count what I have in my wallet.  The difference between
> that and the Cash Account ledger balance, I treat as a Miscellaneous
> Expense.  I haven't got a Gambling account, and I wouldn't create one to
> hold one item.
>
> Doug.
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