There are many different references to tax in a set of accounts. We could see tax expense, tax payable and tax paid And each is seen on a different financial statement. The income statement, balance sheet and the cash flow statement But all are connected together and we can see this by using BASE analysis BASE analysis firstly asks which account do we want to start with? I want to look at my beginning tax is payable The next question that base analysis asks is, what might make that account go up? What's driving it? My addition to taxes payable will be the tax expense for the period, the extra that I owe in tax But the next question is what might make it go down? What would I subtract from taxes payable? And I would subtract any taxes paid. Of course if I paid some tax, that's going to reduce the amount I owe Sum them altogether, that gets me to my ending taxes payable at the end of the period