Michael, Thanks again for your perspective. I admit to being a little confused by your comments here.
My breakdown was based on an earlier post that emphasized the need to isolate the initial deposits into a "deferred income" account and add the extra entries at distribution time. I interpreted that to mean a separate income account; I don't know what a "standing account" is or where it would be placed in the hierarchy. Equity? As for counting as income, most paychecks I've seen list the employee's gross income at the top, with contributions to tax-deferred accounts listed as deductions from the gross amount. This is why I placed deferred income under income; the income that my employer lists at year end includes this deferred income. I can, I imagine, chalk this up to another case of "their books, my books" (as in, "On their books, it's income; on my books it's not."), but I'd be happy to understand a little better. The case of an IRA can be even more confusing, in that a person can make IRA contributions entirely separately from income transactions and have those contributions affect income at tax time. David T. On Jan 14, 2023, 1:10 AM, at 1:10 AM, Michael or Penny Novack <stepbystepf...@comcast.net> wrote: >On 1/13/2023 11:48 AM, R Losey wrote: >> Thanks. The only minor drawback is that I seem to be entering the >data >> twice under "Income" just to keep track of IRA distributions on their > >> own. But hey, it's one way to make it work. >> >> And, as has been pointed out, since this is not really "income", it >> makes sense that the transaction has no net income. I think I'll >adopt >> this method for 2023. >> >> In hindsight, since the Fiduciary Trust that keeps the IRA has to >> report to me on distributions, I haven't felt a need to have an >> account for this and to double-check them. >> >> >> >> On Thu, Jan 12, 2023 at 10:56 PM David T. <sunfis...@yahoo.com> >wrote: >> >> Two separate entries. In my mind, this would best be put in one >> transaction, to make the association obvious. >> >> CR - Assets: IRA $1000 >> DB - Assets: Checking $1000 >> DB - Income: Deferred Income $1000 >> CR - Income: IRA Distribution $1000 * >> ><<< it most certainly COULD be in one entry. A transaction can have >more >than two accounts. It is only when entering via the shortcut "enter >directly into the ledger" that gnucash allows you to do that is limited > >to two accounts. When entering a "split" in "journal mode" you can have > >more than two. In the old days ALL transactions were entered first in >the journal and then posted to the ledger. But even in pen and ink days > >we had SOME shortcut possibilities, like "cashbook accounting" << where > >a small subset of the ledger allowed direct entry skipping the >journal.>> > >BUT -- I would not have "deferred income" under income, because it is >more like a standing account. The money that you put into the 401k/IRA >did not get counted in your income in those years. The money >contributed >by your employer (401k) did not get counted as income back then, nor >the >annual increases in fund value as you perhaps marked to market at year >end (the investment income of the fund). > >When you take distributions later is when it becomes income << you are >undeferring that amount >> > >This is accounting, not gnucash > >Michael D Novack > > >> >> * Income: IRA Distribution is used to document the distribution >> for tax purposes. >> >> David T. >> On Jan 13, 2023, at 7:21 AM, R Losey <rlo...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Thanks for all of the information... however, getting back to >the original >> question, I'm not sure how to record IRA taxable >distributions. I thought I >> was doing it, but I am apparently not. >> >> Let me write through a couple of cases. In the first one, >I'm selling >> $1000 worth (10 shares) of security A and having it go >directly to my >> checking account with no income tax withholding. (some of >these may be >> USA-centric terms; I apologize for that). >> _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org 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.
