the transaction.

#### TaxReporting Tag

The `TaxReporting` tag is an optional tag for `Assets` accounts that debit to

the account.

When provided, the `TaxReporting` accompanies a `TaxImplication` information

tag.  The TaxReporting refers to a document that verifies the choice for the

`TaxImplication` tag.  For example, for individual contractors in the USA, a

`TaxImplication` of `1099` would be well served by a `TaxReporting` that

links to a [W-9](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf) for the individual

being paid.  For a individual foreign contractor, the `TaxReporting` might

link to a

[W8-BEN](https://www.irs.gov/uac/form-w-8ben-certificate-of-foreign-status-of-beneficial-owner-for-united-states-tax-withholding)

for the payee.

### Information Tags

In contrast to documentation tags, information tags can more traditionally be

considered pure "meta-data" for a ledger entry.

#### Entity Tag

The `Entity:` tag is required for many types of ledger entries.  The value of

the `Entity:` tag is a unique moniker that identifies the organization,

company, person, or legal entity that is the external party for the

transaction.

Note that there is no database of these monikers, so typos can cause

trouble.  However, you could implement checks in

`accounts/config/config-tags.ledger` using a regular expression to verify no

typos have occurred.  This would be somewhat cumbersome, since Ledger CLI

would likely require that the monikers be encoded into a regular expression.

Barring that, the

[integrity of your data should be periodically checked](checking-integrity-of-tag).

#### IncomeType Tag

The `IncomeType:` tag is used for all `Income:` accounts.  This refers to the

type of income.  The value of the `IncomeType:` tag is always a string.

Since this particular system is designed for USA non-profit entities who file

USA Form 990, the following `IncomeType` values are supported:

* `Donations`, which refers to standard charitable donations.

* `RBI`, which refers to "related business income".

Not that donor-advised funds and government grants don't currently have their

own `IncomeType`.  It's possible this might be necessary; the authors aren't

familiar with how to handle those items on the Form 990.  It would be a

relatively simple change to `config-tags.ledger`, though, to support other

income types, or to change it entirely to handle use-cases other than USA

Form 990 filing.

#### TaxImplication Tag

The `TaxImplication:` tag is used for all `Asset:` accounts when the

transaction includes a payment of $10.00 or more leaving the account.  This

tag catalogs any tax implications that might occur on outgoing funds.

The most important USA-related issue tracked by this tag are contractors who

must have annual 1099 and/or W2 issued.  An [`Entity:` tag](entity-tag) should always

go along with a TaxImplication tag.

The possible values for this field are:

* `1099`, indicating the amount paid requires issuance of a USA Federal Form

  1099 for the `Entity` involved.

* `W2`, indicating the amount paid will be part of a USA Federal income, as

  reported on Form W2 report for the `Entity` involved.

* `Retirement-Pretax`, indicating the amount paid was made to a W2 employee

  as part of pre-tax retirement plan, such as a 401(k) or 403(b) plan.

* `Accountant-Advises-No-1099`, indicating that the circumstances and rules

  seem to indicate a USA Federal Form 1099 should be issued for the `Entity`

  involved, but an outside accountant advised that no 1099 need be issues for

  this `Entity`.

* `Bank-Transfer`, indicating that the amount is a transfer between two

  banking accounts under the control of the NPO itself.

* `Foreign-Individual-Contractor`, indicating that the NPO has established

  that the `Entity` is a contractor residing outside the USA who is not a USA

  citizen and does not for any reason pay taxes in the USA.

* `Foreign-Corporation`, indicating that the NPO has established

  that the `Entity` is a corporation outside the USA.

* `USA-Corporation`, indicating that the NPO has established that the

  `Entity` is an incorporated entity the USA (i.e., "Inc."), and therefore no

  1099 is required.

* `Tax-Payment`, indicating this is a tax payment to a taxing authority (such

  as the state or federal government) (e.g., a unrelated business income tax

  payment).

* `USA-LLC-No-1099`, indicating that the `Entity` is an LLC, but not the type

  of LLC for which the USA requires issuing a 1099.

* `Loan`, indicating that the `Entity` is receiving these funds as a loan

  that is expected to be paid back.

#### Program Tag

The `Program` tag is used primarily to track program activity for `Income:`

and `Expenses:` accounts.  This allows for knowing what particular initiative

initiated the income (e.g., a specific fundraising campaign) and/or what

particular program activity an expense is toward (e.g., funding travel to

some specific conference).

The Program tag is always a string with the same format as a Ledger CLI

account (primarily for use with Ledger CLI's `--pivot` and `--group-by`,

[as described later](#testing-program-success)).

#### GrantLocation Tag

The `GrantLocation` tag is used to indicate that an expense is a grant.  The

value for the tag should indicate the geographical region.  It is recommend

that the geographical reason be identified with the

[ISO 3166-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2) two letter country

code for the country where the grant goes.

This tag is to assist in filing

Form 990, [Schedule I](https://www.irs.gov/uac/about-schedule-i-form-990) and

[Schedule F](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-annual-reporting-requirements-foreign-activities-form-990-schedule-f-activities-reported).

### Account Type Documentation Requirements

Each account type has different documentation requirements.  Based on the

type of the account, it requires a different set of tags.

When Ledger CLI's `--pedantic` option is used, these rules are enforced by

ledger itself via the configurations found in `config-tags.ledger` and

`config-accounts.ledger`.

#### Expense Account Documentation

Each `Expenses:` account entry must be tagged with the following tags:

  [`Statement`](#statement-tag).  (The only exception to this rule: an entry

  does not need an `Invoice:`, `Receipt`, nor a `Statement` tag if the

  [payee was never charged](#never-charged-payee).)

* A [`Program:`](#program-tag) tag.

Expense accounts can have the following optional tag:

* A [`GrantLocation:`](#grantlocation-tag) tag.

#### NEVER CHARGED Payee

The only exception to the standard tagging requirement is when the payee has

been modified to indicate that the expense was `NEVER CHARGED`.  This is an

historical special-case.  The solution was originally design for the

following scenario:

Suppose an expense was expected — for example, a situation where you

gave a credit card number to charge something and the charge never came

through — but it turns out the charge never happened.

The recommended way to resolve this problem in the system is to just delete

the entry entirely from the Ledger file, and allow the VCS to log the fact

that the charge was expected, but the vendor never billed the credit card.

The reason the `NEVER CHARGED` payee text was added was to handle the

situation where the books included this charge, but the books were already

closed for the financial period (e.g., the books had already been audited).

Changing the payee was a method for documenting the expense.  You might use

it like this:

    2011/05/28 My Bad Billing Hosting - NEVER CHARGED

        Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa            $-100.00

        Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting             $100.00

    2012/01/01 My Bad Billing Hosting - REVERSAL - NEVER CHARGED

        Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa             $100.00

        Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting            $-100.00

However, going forward, you'd likely never enter anything the ledger

**until** you had real proof via an Invoice, Receipt or Statement that showed

the Expense did/should occur.  This use of `NEVER CHARGED` in the payee is

thus deprecated.

#### Income Account Documentation

Each `Income:` account must have the following tags:

    $ ledger -f accounts/books.ledger --pivot Program bal '/^Income/'

Meanwhile, using the  [`Program`](#program-tag) tag for Expenses can help

track what programs are costing with commands like these:

    $ ledger -f accounts/books.ledger --group-by 'tag("Program")' reg '/^Expenses/'

FIXME: example output

### Checking Integrity of a Tag

[As mentioned](#entity-tag), the `Entity:` tag is one example among many

where the value is a wide range, but since Ledger CLI isn't backed by a more

complete ERP system, it's possible during data entry for typos to make a

serious problem.  One work around to this flaw is to periodically run a

command like:

    $ ledger -f accounts/books.ledger -F '%(tag("Entity"))\n' reg|sort|uniq|less

which will show all unique `Entity:` values currently in use.

Copyright and License of This File

----------------------------------

This specific document, the README.md file for npo-ledger-cli, is copyrighted:

  Copyright © 2013, Bradley M. Kuhn

This document's license gives you freedom; you can copy, modify, convey,

propagate, and/or redistribute this software under the terms of either:

    * The GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software

      Foundation, Inc.; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option)

      any later version (aka GPLv3-or-later).

    * *or* the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States

      license, as published by Creative Commons, Inc. (aka CC-By-SA-USA-3.0)

In addition, when you convey, distribute, and/or propagate this document

and/or modified versions thereof, you may also preserve this notice so that

recipients of such distributions will also have both licensing options

described above.

A copy of GPLv3 and CC-By-SA-3.0-USA can be found in the same repository as

this file under the filenames GPLv3.txt and CC-By-SA-3.0-USA.txt.  If this

document has been separated from the repository, a

[copy of GPL can be found on FSF's website](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt)

and a

[copy of CC-By-SA-USA-3.0 can be found on Creative Commons' website](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode).