report: aggregate interest per account

[Tarlika Elisabeth Schmitz]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:25:03 +0100
"Maf. King" <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:

> On Thursday 24 Apr 2008, Tarlika Elisabeth Schmitz wrote:
> > I need to produce a list of all bank accounts that received interest
> > during the tax year, ideally with the interest total and tax
> > deducted at source total. (In the UK, banks deduct 20% and pass it
> > on to the Revenue.)
> >
> >
> > The best I could come up with is a transaction report listing all
> > transactions against the Income.Interest account during the year and
> > then go through them one by one.
> 
> Can you run the transaction report on income:Interest (and 
> Expense:Tax_Taken_Off_Interest) and subtotal by "other account"?

Thank you so much for pointing this feature out to me! I have only ever
used reports generated from Find but never looked at the Transaction
Report.

Transaction report on Income:Interest filtered by bank accounts would
produce just what I need, if it wasn't for the fact that I am
storing all interest credits as splits (gross = net+tax deducted),
rather than as two separate transactions (credit gross and debit
deduction).

I might have to consider unsplitting 4 years' worth of transactions
to get this report ... I wish this could be done automagically.

It does not seem possible to save a customized Transaction Report. Is
this correct?


> FWIW, I have Income:Interest-Gross and Income:Interest-Net to reflect
> the way that different banks show the interest they have paid.  Also,

From am accounting point of view, the gross interest is your income
and the tax deducted at source reduces your liability towards HMRC*. If
you record net interest, you cannot work out the gross interest with
any ease unless you imply 20% has been deducted; but that figure might
change at some point.

You mention above that you record the interest deducted at source as an
expense. It is not an expense at that point, just a reduction of a
potential liability towards HMRC. I say potential because you might be
able to claim it back depending on your income.
Only the tax due, based on your SA*, is an expense, which needs to be
recorded in the period that it relates to so it shows on that period's
P&L.


Example: 

Assets:Bank:BankAccount
Expenses:Tax:IncomeTax
Liabilities:Tax:HMRC

record tax due: Expenses:Tax:IncomeTax - Liabilities:Tax:HMRC
record payments: Assets:Bank:BankAccount - Liabilities:Tax:HMRC


> I'll note that with the change in layout of the UK tax return this
> year, it is my understanding that you only need the net interest
> total, not gross and tax deducted as in previous years


I use the accounts, amongst other things, to keep a check on banks and
HMRC. I calculate the tax due using my figures from GnuCash and if
there is a discrepancy (as happened to me last year), I'll know about
it.

The only downside of recording the gross interest figure where banks
statements don't display it is that you have to guess the deducted
amount and compare it against the tax deduction certificates from the
banks.




* for non-UK residents: HMRC = Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs




--


Best Regards,

Tarlika Elisabeth Schmitz


A: Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion
Q: Why is top posting bad?