Hi,
What I'm doing is having two or more beancount files for this kind of
situations.
For example, you could have a tax.bean and a personal.bean and write in
each the different accounts, definitions, etc.
I know is not the best because you must maintain 2 files, 2 writes, etc...
but at least, when you are talking to the tax men the information is clear
and when you are checking your personal finances also.
Regards.
On Friday, December 6, 2019 at 1:27:54 AM UTC+1, Jonathan Klabunde Tomer
wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I have a number of situations where I view a transaction as simultaneously
> an "expense" and a transfer to an asset (or liability) account, and I'm
> wondering if anyone else has this experience and likes their solution.
>
> Example 1: when my hot water heater broke, I took the opportunity to
> upgrade to a tankless model. According to the tax code, the difference
> between what a replacement of the original would have cost and the actual
> amount I spent on the new unit gets to be added to the cost basis of my
> house. But outside of doing my taxes, I pretty much consider this to be an
> expense. I currently have it booked like this:
>
> 2019-09-01 * "Some Plumber" "tankless HWH parts & installation"
> Assets:Checking -5000 USD
> Expenses:House:Contractors 500 USD
> Expenses:House:Appliances 500 USD
> Assets:House:Capital-Improvements 4000 USD
>
> but then when I look at my income statement, it looks like I only spent
> $1,000 on this project when I really spent $5,000. The tax man may
> (eventually) care that $4,000 went to improving my home's value, but I
> don't.
>
> Example 2: when I pay my mortgage, I recognize a small interest expense
> and a large principal payment as a transfer:
>
> 2019-10-01 * ""
> Assets:Checking -4500 USD
> Expenses:Mortgage:Interest 3000 USD
> Liabilities:Mortgage 1500 USD
>
> If I care about changes in my net worth, this makes perfect sense. But if
> I'm trying to budget, I need to know my actual cash flow, not my P&L; if my
> income is enough to pay off my real expenses but not my real expenses plus
> my principal payments, I'm in trouble. I don't have a good way to model
> this at all.
>
> Example 3: I have a donor-advised fund that I use for tax arbitrage of my
> charitable giving. When I move securities into the DAF, I am making a
> transfer from one asset account to another, but for tax purposes it would
> be very helpful to collect everything that's deductible as charitable
> giving into a single account. What I do now is:
>
> 2019-12-01 * "Transfer of appreciated securities to DAF"
> Assets:Brokerage:STOCK -100 STOCK { 2015-03-04 } @ 100 USD
> Income:Brokerage:STOCK:Capital-Gains:Non-Taxable
> Expenses:Charitable-Giving 10000 USD
> Income:DAF:Contributions 10000 USD
> Assets:DAF 200 DAF { 50 USD }
>
> This works, but it means I have a phantom Income account to ignore in my
> income statements, which is kind of weird.
>
> How do you all handle these types of situation in your accounting and
> reporting?
>
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