[ale] GnuCash (Was: Re: [OT] Home PBX?)

[Jim Kinney]

HA!

You said "US centric" and "metric buttload" in the same sentence!


On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 10:48 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> "mike at trausch.us" <mike at trausch.us> writes:
>
> [snip]
>>> As I said, it's certainly doable.  But I don't think GnuCash would be
>>> the right place for it necessarily only because it's something that
>>> would need to be configured for every business.  Then again it could
>>> just be left open (like the Tax Tables, Customers, Vendors, Billing
>>> Terms, etc) for you to fill in.
>>
>> To a certain extent.  It would be kinda cool if GC had a way to take the
>> data that was in, for example, IRS Pub 15 and automatically handle it.
>> Someone would have to take the tables and formulas and put them in, plus
>> they have to be able to be updated without recompiling GC.
>>
>> I plan on doing something like that when I get to the point where I'm
>> not relying on the payroll company.  The only real complication there is
>> trying to keep up-to-date with the various states.  The IRS sends out a
>> new copy of Pub 15 annually, so updating tax tables based on that would
>> work just fine.  I'm not sure if states actually all do something like
>> that or not.
>
> I've thought about something like that and what it would mean.  The main
> issue is that even right now you're talking about something US-centric.
> And even focusing on US-centric you still have a metric buttload of
> things to worry about, not just the various tax tables for Fed, State,
> County, and City, but also pre-tax deductions, post-tax deductions,
> capped deductions, deductions that count against one tax but not
> another, etc, etc, etc.  It's a complete morass.
>
> Now add a second country.  ;)
>
> Yes, of course the right way to do it would be via a
> scheme/xml/json/TNBT file that contained the tax rules for your locale
> (or allowed you to select your locale to choose the rules).  And yes, it
> should absolutely be a runtime-loaded file, not compiled in.  But
> generating the file accurately every year would be a LOT of work.
>
> Honestly, if I were doing it I would most definitely charge for the tax
> tables, because I don't see an automated way to input them.  And if I
> had to do it by hand every year to support users I would definitely want
> some compensation for my time there.
>
>> Actually, I'm pretty sure that there are people that create data files
>> representing all of those things online.  I wonder how much effort it
>> would be to get GC to do payroll processing in such a way that it could
>> use those tables, and then one could be able to do things like enter the
>> number of hours in GC and get all the right splits out of it.  You'd
>> still have to print checks or initiate the ACH transactions external to
>> GC, though.
>
> GC can print checks.  But yes, you would need to initate ACH outside of
> gnucash.  And you would have to train gnucash to print out an actual
> paystub.
>
>> As an aside: why the hell don't we have a developer-friendly bank,
>> something along the same lines as Stripe, but that allows for small-time
>> ACH transfers?
>
> Good question.  Possibly because Intuit controls the market and there is
> no open-source OFX server?
>
>>       --- Mike
>
> -derek
>
> --
>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>        warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
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-- 
--
James P. Kinney III

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his
own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain

http://electjimkinney.org
http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/