I think this depends on how you want to keep your books - either recognizing income in the year it is received, or waiting until the year it is taxable. If the latter, then this seems to be caused by income in a prior year being overstated, or more likely, opening equity the first year you began keeping records was overstated because there technically should have been a liability account for deferred income (created when a contribution was made to the IRA). I think a potential fix is to debit an Equity account and credit Income:RMD.
2006-01-02 * "RMD from IRA" #RMD Assets:IRA -100 USD. ; from tax free IRA account (cash) Expenses: Taxes 20 USD. ; to Uncle Sam - IRS Witholding Assets:InvestmentAC 80 USD ; to taxable brokerage account (cash) Income:RMD -100 USD ; taxable RMD Equity:PriorPeriodAdj. 100 USD ; deferred income liability from a prior year If you were keeping records in the year of contribution I think the entry would have been something like: 1996-01-02 * "Contribution to IRA" Assets:IRA 100 USD Assets:Cash -100 USD Income:EarnedIncome 100 USD ; reduce income by the amount being deferred Liability:DeferredIncome -100 USD ; create liability since this income has to be recognized later and then the future distribution: 2006-01-02 * "RMD from IRA" #RMD Assets:IRA -100 USD. ; from tax free IRA account (cash) Expenses: Taxes 20 USD. ; to Uncle Sam - IRS Withholding Assets:InvestmentAC 80 USD ; to taxable brokerage account (cash) Income:RMD -100 USD ; taxable RMD Liability:DeferredIncome 100 USD ; deferred income liability from a prior year All that to say, I think I would go with Martin's solution due to the simplicity of counting it as income the year it was received, and not this year - although it would still be necessary to track separately for taxes. On Sun, Jan 1, 2023 at 6:05 PM Martin Blais <[email protected]> wrote: > You could try posting like initially to a transfer account, and then a > query like > select ... where account ~ ':RMD' and number > 0 > > Alternatively, you could write a script that detects transactions with IRA > and RMD postings and highlight those. > > > > On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 8:15 AM Paul Marriott <[email protected]> wrote: > >> what I am doing right now is adding a tag so I can at least track RMD's. >> Its really a deferred income stream, but since it was received in the past >> before I started using beancount, I'll just tag them so I can collect the >> year end amounts to check and/or include on my tax return. >> >> 2006-01-02 * "RMD from IRA" #RMD >> Assets:IRA -100 USD. ; from tax free IRA >> account (cash) >> Expenses: Taxes 20 USD. ; to Uncle Sam - IRS >> Witholding >> Assets:InvestmentAC 80 USD ; to taxable brokerage account >> (cash) >> >> On Saturday, December 31, 2022 at 5:52:56 PM UTC-6 [email protected] wrote: >> >>> Thinking further on this, this problem is so common that it deserves >>> some new abstraction (beyond just solving the issue with a plugin). I'm not >>> sure what that would look like, but some way to automatically update the >>> value of a pair of accounts based on the flows into a third one is what I'm >>> thinking about. >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 1, 2023 at 10:50 AM Martin Blais <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 1, 2023 at 8:55 AM Paul Marriott <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I have a taxable investment account and an IRA. Every month RMD >>>>> (required minimum distribution) is taken from my IRA and added to my >>>>> investment account after Tax withholding. I am not sure how to post this >>>>> transaction. Right now I have: >>>>> 2006-01-02 * "RMD from IRA" >>>>> Assets:IRA -100 USD >>>>> Expenses: Taxes. 20 USD >>>>> Income:RMD. 80 USD >>>>> >>>>> 2006-01-02 * "Transfer from IRA" >>>>> Assets:InvestmentAC. 80 USD >>>>> Income:RMD. -80 USD >>>>> >>>>> The problem I want to record RMD as income, but with the above >>>>> postings, the income account is net zero. What am I doing wrong? Or >>>>> maybe >>>>> I just cant record it as income, although it will appear as income on my >>>>> Tax Return. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Technically they're not income, they're distributions. Taxable >>>> distributions. I wouldn't book them under an income account. >>>> This is one of those cases - there are many more - whereby you want to >>>> count the amounts incoming to that RMD account. >>>> There are two ways I've handled this in the past: (a) by mirroring >>>> (with a plugin) the amounts posted to RMD to two distinct sets of accounts, >>>> (b - simpler) by issuing a query to count them up over a period of time >>>> (the amounts don't automatically update any account). >>>> >>>> >>> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Beancount" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/9604f242-6112-474d-9bc8-5ec540fc4212n%40googlegroups.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/9604f242-6112-474d-9bc8-5ec540fc4212n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAK21%2BhMhbmvTKsu5ygWNcm_mCa6UoxMSk5adSdKEGHdCgJAOOw%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAK21%2BhMhbmvTKsu5ygWNcm_mCa6UoxMSk5adSdKEGHdCgJAOOw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. 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