An income tax is a tax based on an individual’s or business’s earned and unearned income. Here’s how income tax works and what factors affect it.
Logan Allec is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a personal finance expert. He has more than a decade of experience consulting and writing about taxes, tax planning, credit cards, budgeting, and more. Logan also has a master's in taxation from the University of Southern California (USC).
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For example, the U.S. imposes a federal income tax on its citizens—both those who live in the U.S. and those who live abroad—as well as on its resident aliens. This income tax generates most of the U.S. government’s revenue.
Generally, the jurisdiction imposing an income tax has laws in place to instruct taxpayers on how to calculate their income-tax owing. Most states have their own income tax codes that impose state-level income taxes, and some cities and counties impose additional local-level income taxes.