Adam, Your message is confusing to me. You start by saying set up a new income account for distributions, which I think everyone agrees on. But then you follow with a sentence that seems to discuss the initial contributions to an IRA, which wasn't part of the OP's question at all. OP was trying to figure out why their distributions were throwing off reports. You finish with a comment about the taxable aspects of the distribution (a point which I did not know, so thank you).
In my advice, the initial contributions to the retirement account would be tracked on payday as deferred income in a separate account (Income:Wages:Deferred, e.g.). The gross income on the paycheck is also reduced by the deferred amount. That account would continue to accrue value* over the years. When distributions are made, splits in Income:Distributions (a taxable income account) would be balanced by Income:Deferred, slowly reducing the deferred income account eventually back to zero.** This reflects, I believe, the idea that the deferred income is now received. What part of that gets your "No?" David T. * I am aware that income accounts get reflected as negative values, and that the accrued value will be increasingly negative. ** I do wonder at the best means of accounting for the income aspect of the growth in value of the IRA. That income gets tracked in separate dividends accounts in my books, so I'm not sure how I'd determine what portion of a given distribution would be balanced against the wages versus the dividends. On June 12, 2026 12:51:20 AM GMT+05:30, "Adam H. Kerman" <[email protected]> wrote: >12:31pm -0000 06/07/26 David T. via gnucash-user <[email protected]>...: > >>I am not an accountant. I only have retirement accounts from which I have >>not yet taken distributions. > >>I am sure that Michael or others will correct me, but the income account >>transaction should most likely be balanced by the income account that >>funded the IRA originally (such as Income:Wages:Deferred or >>Income:Dividends:Untaxed). > >No. Set up a new income account to receive the distribution. For tax >purposes, the portion of wage or salary that is not deferred is earned >income, subject to Social Security payroll taxes FICA & HI. At distribution, >it's ordinary income and not subject to Social Security taxes. >_______________________________________________ >gnucash-user mailing list >[email protected] >To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: >https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user >----- >Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. >You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
