What's the best way to represent multiple contributions to the same account in one transaction?

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Oon-Ee Ng

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Feb 2, 2017, 8:53:15 PM2/2/17
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Having just switched from Gnucash to beancount I thought I may as well record my salary properly from the payslips I keep stashed around.

My previous method was just to record the final amount I received in my bank account (all deductions already done), and when tax time came to just cross check the EA form (local name, basically a list of compensation and mandatory/voluntary contributions made in relation to my employment in a tax year) my employers gave me with the 13+ payslips I'd received in that tax year (including bonus/supplementary jobs).

This ignored my own (and my employer's) contributions to what we call the EPF and Socso accounts (I think they're fairly analogous to 401k accounts in the US, mandatory contribution defined-contribution retirement savings programmes). I receive an annual report of the amounts in that account but just store those because I can't touch it for decades yet anyway.

The more correct way which I want to do starting this financial year is to record my actual salary (rather than the amount which arrives in my bank account) and contra correctly with all amounts. Here's how things look like in my transaction now, copied exactly from my payslip:-

2017-01-01 * "" "January Salary"
    Assets:Banking:MyBank:SavingsAccount        A MYR
    Income:Salary                               -B MYR
    Expenses:Tax:Y2017                          C MYR
    Assets:EPF                                  D MYR
    Assets:Socso                                E MYR
    Income:EmployerContribution:EPF             -F MYR
    Income:EmployerContribution:Socso           -G MYR
    Assets:EPF                                  F MYR
    Assets:Socso                                G MYR

Note that my EPF/Socso Assets account appears twice. This is because the law mandates that I make a contribution (first two appearances), and that my employer makes a contribution (last two appearances).

This doesn't seem to raise any errors, but double-contribution to a single account seems slightly odd to me. Will I face any problems recording my salary in this manner?

yegle

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Feb 2, 2017, 9:10:52 PM2/2/17
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If the contribution to EPF/Socso is tax free, you can have 3 transactions for each payslip, two of them being Income:EmployerContribution:(EPF|Socso) to Assets:(EPF|Socso).

I don't see a problem of duplicating names here.

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Oon-Ee Ng

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Feb 2, 2017, 9:36:41 PM2/2/17
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Yep, that's an alternative, but is it necessary? Not sure what potential problems I may (or may not) face either way.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAFL5w3VRw_0CLNYEPLT-MqQD0Kuqbir6yFVT5wJkwdAuz4LvqQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Daniël Bos

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Feb 3, 2017, 3:30:53 AM2/3/17
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Keep in mind that if there's a difference between "tax free" (after tax, or actually tax free) and "tax deferred" payments, it's probably a good idea to account for those separately, since for tax deferred plans (or portions) you'll need to pay taxes as you take money out.


On Fri, Feb 3, 2017, 10:36 Oon-Ee Ng <ngoone...@gmail.com> wrote:
Yep, that's an alternative, but is it necessary? Not sure what potential problems I may (or may not) face either way.
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 10:10 AM, yegle <cny...@gmail.com> wrote:
If the contribution to EPF/Socso is tax free, you can have 3 transactions for each payslip, two of them being Income:EmployerContribution:(EPF|Socso) to Assets:(EPF|Socso).

I don't see a problem of duplicating names here.
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Oon-Ee Ng <ngoone...@gmail.com> wrote:
Having just switched from Gnucash to beancount I thought I may as well record my salary properly from the payslips I keep stashed around.

My previous method was just to record the final amount I received in my bank account (all deductions already done), and when tax time came to just cross check the EA form (local name, basically a list of compensation and mandatory/voluntary contributions made in relation to my employment in a tax year) my employers gave me with the 13+ payslips I'd received in that tax year (including bonus/supplementary jobs).

This ignored my own (and my employer's) contributions to what we call the EPF and Socso accounts (I think they're fairly analogous to 401k accounts in the US, mandatory contribution defined-contribution retirement savings programmes). I receive an annual report of the amounts in that account but just store those because I can't touch it for decades yet anyway.

The more correct way which I want to do starting this financial year is to record my actual salary (rather than the amount which arrives in my bank account) and contra correctly with all amounts. Here's how things look like in my transaction now, copied exactly from my payslip:-

2017-01-01 * "" "January Salary"
    Assets:Banking:MyBank:SavingsAccount        A MYR
    Income:Salary                               -B MYR
    Expenses:Tax:Y2017                          C MYR
    Assets:EPF                                  D MYR
    Assets:Socso                                E MYR
    Income:EmployerContribution:EPF             -F MYR
    Income:EmployerContribution:Socso           -G MYR
    Assets:EPF                                  F MYR
    Assets:Socso                                G MYR

Note that my EPF/Socso Assets account appears twice. This is because the law mandates that I make a contribution (first two appearances), and that my employer makes a contribution (last two appearances).

This doesn't seem to raise any errors, but double-contribution to a single account seems slightly odd to me. Will I face any problems recording my salary in this manner?

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Best regards,
Daniël Bos

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Oon-Ee Ng

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Feb 4, 2017, 3:05:45 PM2/4/17
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Thanks, but as tax law varies widely between jurisdictions I don't see the distinction here. I suspect (based on what I've previously read) that in more developed (Western) economies paying taxes on withdrawal is possible, but that doesn't hold in my third-world country at this point in time, we only have an income tax and a (brand-new) consumption tax. In particular I do not foresee in my lifetime any sort of inheritance tax or similar which would apply to existing/cumulative holdings.

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Best regards,
Daniël Bos

Your government is reading your email. Slow them down with encryption.

My public key: http://goo.gl/gms497 (4096 bit RSA, id EF2D5D91)
Fingerprint  : D8D0 9FBE F075 F709 7B52  2F73 326C 2123 EF2D 5D91

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