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A company's tax expense, or tax charge, is the income before tax multiplied by the appropriate tax rate. Generally, companies report income before tax to their shareholder under generally accepted accounting principles. However, companies report income before tax to their government under tax law.
As a result, the computation of the tax expense is considerably more complex. Tax law may provide for different treatment of items of income and expenses as a result of tax policy. The differences may be of permanent or temporary nature. Permanent items are in the form of non taxable income and non taxable expenses. Things such as expenses considered not deductible by taxing authorities , the range of tax rates applicable to various levels of income, different tax rates in different jurisdictions, multiple layers of tax on income, and other issues.
For example, a government trying to promote savings may exempt interest income from tax or provide a lower rate for long term investments -such as capital gains. Conversely, a government trying to balance its foreign trade may disallow the deduction of international travel expenses or purchases made abroad.
An example of temporary items may be depreciation expense; sometimes governments provide for "accelerated" depreciation of particular items of interest to tax policy. Another common temporary difference refers to bad debt write-off where the governments may generally have a stricter standard requiring the filing of claims in court.