what is gross income 
gross income for an individual also known as gross pay when it s on a paycheck is an individual s total earnings before taxes or other deductions this includes income from all sources not just employment and is not limited to income received in cash it also includes property or services received for companies gross income is interchangeable with gross margin or gross profit a company s gross income found on the income statement is the revenue from all sources minus the firm s cost of goods sold cogs investopedia tara anandunderstanding gross incomethere are different components to gross income in respects to an individual and a company an individual will easily be able to determine their gross income by consulting a recent pay stub or calculating their hours worked and wage alternatively gross income of a company may require a bit more computation an individual s gross income is used by lenders or landlords to determine whether that person is a worthy borrower or renter when filing federal and state income taxes gross income is the starting point before subtracting deductions to determine the amount of tax owed a company calculates gross income to understand how the product specific aspect of its business performed by using gross income and limiting what expenses are included in the analysis a company can better analyze what is driving success or failure for example if a company is interested in knowing how a specific product line is performing it does not want to see the company s rent expense included in the performance as that is an unrelated administrative expense 