Andrea, Unfortunately I do not think that there is "One true way to do it in accounting". There are certainly some basic principles but it is particularly difficult when your operations are in several countries. My step son has a similar problem as he is a pro soccer player and has played internationally for a number of years. There are no uniform taxation, industrial relations and employment laws country to country and most countries have a different set of rules for foreign residents and their own citizens. Most will require you to pay tax on any income earned in the country, but in some cases your home country may also want to tax you again although most but not all have provisions against double taxation. If you are still working overseas at times you will need to find an accountant who is experienced at handling multiple jurisdictions preferably with experience in the countries you are working in
In cases where you have assets in a foreign country held in that countries currency and transactions in that country are carried out in that currency it would certainly make sense to maintain asset, liability and income and expense accounts in that countries currency, particularly if you are liable for tax on income earned there as well as tax wherever you are primarily based on income earned there. Ultimately if your objective is to know your net worth, it is obviously easier if that is in a single currency but where you have assets in multiple currencies, the value of these in your base currency is not fixed but is varying with exchange rates. A reasonable approach would be to have a balance sheet in each currency at a given point in time and then convert to your base currency to produce an overall balance sheet in your base currency. I am not sure if the report system does that automatically in Gnucash as I haven't had any need to use such features since i have been using it. Someone else may be able to comment on that. On the mutual fund purchase. It is most likely that the fund will have paid US taxes on its earnings so you are unlikely to be liable for any tax in the US so there is likely little value in maintaining US expense or income accounts. I base that un professional opinion only on general principles that most fairly civilized countries operate under, not any specific knowledge of either US or Italian taxation laws. At least in Europe ( now apart from Britain) these were generally becoming fairly uniform. If you are liable for Italian taxes on the fund dividends and gains, then it is likely you will have to convert any amounts to Euro for taxation purposes in any case, so it would make sense to me to keep the expense and income accounts in the currency you will be taxed in and convert any transactions involving a foreign currency to that currency using the exchange rate at the time of the transaction. That is how I would and do record any transactions in US currency but I am retired and my tax and financial situation is extremely simple and primarily single currency in Australia It really depends totally on the complexity and nature of your financial dealing as to what is appropriate in a particular case and for that you will need local accounting and financial expertise. Generally though if your books reflect exactly what happens and when, a competent accountant can always put them into any form necessary for specific purposes. We can really only give advice on the program and its operation and how to achieve a desired recording using GnuCash once you know what recording is necessary and appropriate for your circumstances. God luck! David ----- David Cousens -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
