Payment of Sales Tax by Source/Customer AND Profit & Loss Statement Issue

Hello everyone. I’m a new ERPNext user (using version 14)! While I’m loving what the app can do, I’m facing a couple of issues which I hope someone can help me solve.

Firstly, in my country, private organizations usually pay the Sales Tax on the invoice themselves to the tax authority and do not include it in their cheque/cash payment to the vendor (me). But public organizations do not pay Sales Tax themselves and include the amount in their payment to the vendor (me). I created an invoice for a private organization and I entered a new payment on that invoice but I can’t find a way to not include the 17% sales tax amount and also exclude it from the tax payable accounting account. Is there way I can do this for these private organizations?

Another issue I’m facing is that I created a new item and set its valuation price and opening balance (quantity). However, in my profit and loss statement, it is showing the item’s purchase value as this year’s direct stock expense even though I don’t want it to show that way. Plus, if I sell the item, it does not show up as Cost of Goods Sold in the profit loss statement.

Sorry for the long paragraphs. I’ll greatly appreciate it if someone helps me on this! Much love to everyone.