Hi Naomi

Sorry couldn't respond earlier, my day here was over :), but I am glad to hear that the problem has been resolved. But remember rounding is a pain nevertheless.

Just Like Sergey Karimov, I have an example from India which also has to do with govt. and taxation and govt. feeds on complications and benefits from mistakes due to the complications.

Every invoice will generally contain multiple items. The items are categorized under various Sub-Heading by the govt. The items total is than charged with Central Excise of, eg. 16%. Now 2% Education Cess is levied on and calculated of this 16% Excise. Excise amount were generally rounded by the clients here to 0 decimals. Now this Cess has introduced very small values so Cess amounts are rounded up to 2 decimals (we have no value, nor coins, of decimals in our currency though it is maintained).

Till it is in the invoice no problem. The items sold have to have their own ledger pages to be maintained (either Item-wise of Sub-Heading-wise). These details also have to be represented as a Summary at the end of the month. So an invoice's items are separated into individual (or grouped by Sub-Heading) into ledgers with their individual 16% and 2%. Then at the end of the month they are regrouped together into a summary with 16% and 2%, of course. So now the invoice which has for eg. 15 items, these 15 items will have to be individually displayed in the ledgers along with their own 16% and 2% (of the 16%). At the month end, these ledgers are regrouped into a summary, item-wise or sub-heading wise.

I hope you see the point and complications, we generally tend to total the invoice, calc. 16%, calc. 2% and add to the original total. The whole calculation falls apart when you add the individual items 16% and 2% in the ledger and tally with the invoices.

Add to this mix, the complication of rounding and you have runaway totals.

UPDATE: This is just one tax, we have other taxes after these 2 are calculated :).