The main accounting record of a business, which contains all the accounts (assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, and expenses) necessary to prepare financial statements. All transactions from journals are posted to the general ledger.
General Ledger
TaxationThe main accounting record of a business, which contains all the accounts (assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, and expenses) necessary to prepare financial statements.
Definition
Example
After recording daily sales in the sales journal, the accountant posts the total sales revenue to the 'Sales Revenue' account in the General Ledger, which is then used to prepare the trial balance and ultimately the income statement.
Study context
Taxation in the CA syllabus
Taxation terms span direct tax — the Income-tax Act's heads of income, deductions, assessments and TDS — and indirect tax, primarily GST with its concepts of supply, input tax credit, registration and returns. Tax is examined at Intermediate and in full professional depth at Final, and its vocabulary is statutory: every term means exactly what the Act says it means.
Tax questions are built from defined terms — 'previous year', 'perquisite', 'composite supply', 'input service distributor'. Identifying the governing definition is the first and largest step of every answer, and amendments regularly change what terms include, making current, precise knowledge essential.
How to study this area
- Learn each term with its section reference and the assessment year or GST provisions applicable to your attempt.
- Master the computational chains: gross total income → deductions → total income → tax liability, and output tax → ITC → net payable.
- Solve full computation problems weekly — tax knowledge decays into fragments without regular end-to-end practice.
- Track amendments through ICAI's RTP and the statutory update for your attempt; last year's answer can be this year's mistake.
Where it appears in exams
- Total income computation across all five heads
- GST — supply, ITC eligibility and time of supply questions
- TDS and advance tax provisions
- Case-based MCQs on residential status and exemptions
Common pitfalls
- Applying an outdated rate, limit or provision after an amendment.
- Confusing exemptions with deductions and applying them at the wrong stage of computation.
- Missing blocked-credit rules when computing input tax credit.
FAQsHave questions?
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Talk to usWhich finance act applies to my attempt?
ICAI notifies the applicable Finance Act and assessment year for every exam cycle. Always check the announcement for your specific attempt and study only from material updated for it — the RTP for your attempt is the definitive amendment source.
Direct tax or GST — where should terminology effort go first?
Both carry substantial weight, but GST terminology tends to yield faster marks because its concepts — supply, ITC, registration thresholds — repeat across most questions. Build GST vocabulary early, then deepen direct-tax terms head by head.
Practice this concept
Understand the term, then master the application.
Drill MCQs, get step-by-step solutions and check your answers on Taxation topics — tuned to Foundation, Intermediate and Final.
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