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The income statement shows a company's revenues and expenses over a period of time — a quarter or a year — and ends with net income.
It starts with Revenue, the total sales generated. Subtract Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) — the direct costs of producing what was sold — to get Gross Profit.
From Gross Profit, subtract Operating Expenses — things like SG&A, R&D, and marketing, which aren't tied directly to production — to arrive at Operating Income, also called EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes).
Below that, you account for non-operating items: Interest Expense (and Interest Income), and any other one-off items. That gets you to Pre-Tax Income.
Apply the tax rate to get Taxes, and subtracting that from Pre-Tax Income gives you Net Income — the "bottom line," which also flows into the top of the Cash Flow Statement and into Retained Earnings on the Balance Sheet.