[Koha] Prices and tax in koha (also send on koha-devel)

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,


On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 6:16 AM, BOUIS Sonia <sonia.bouis at univ-lyon3.fr>wrote:

> So I wonder if a decision about the prices and a correction of all the
> tables in acquisitions isn't necessary...
> My suggestion is to stock all the price including tax and to calculate the
> price in the budget and in all the displaying tables according to the
> preferences in the vendor. I think, all the scripts of calculation and the
> template for displaying tables have to be correct.
>
> It could be a new goal for koha 3.16 or perhaps for koha 3.18...
>

This is an excellent question.  There are have been a number of bugs over
the years regarding the calculation of taxes for acquisitions, including a
number which are still open [1].

It's not an easy one to answer, though, at least in part.  The easy part is
to say that list prices, effective prices, tax amounts, and vendor
discounts should be handled consistently in all parts of the acquisitions
module.  The not-so-easy part is to decide how.  For example, should an
effective price as stored in the database be inclusive of tax or exclusive
of tax?  I could see either approach working.

One of the tricky bits is that tax policy varies so much.  For example, in
the U.S. prices are almost always quoted exclusive of any applicable sales
tax.  If you want to know the price a library would pay for a book, it
would be something like take the list price, subtract the vendor discount,
then add the applicable sales tax -- though since the U.S. does not have a
national sales tax, the sales tax rate you pay depends on things like where
you are, where the book vendor is, and if you are subject to paying use tax
in your home state.

I am not an acquisitions librarian, by the way, so it's entirely possible
that I've got a detail wrong in the above paragraph.

Consequently, I propose that we expand this thread for users (or potential
users) of Koha to weigh in on what their expectations are regarding
accounting for taxes in acquisitions.  Some questions to get started:

- If you get quoted a price for an item, is that price inclusive or
exclusive of tax?
- Do you want to be able to account for taxes in a separate fund from the
fund that pays for the main cost of the item?
- As a library, are there taxes that you would pay when purchasing items
that subsequently get refunded at the end of the year?
- If a vendor gives you a discount, is the discount applied to the pre-tax
price or the price that includes tax?
- What factors govern the tax rate that applies to a given item?

[1] E.g., 3980, 10613, 11062, 2865.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Manager of Implementation
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
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