This paper, based on the tense theory presented in Wada (2001a), offers a comparative study of differences and similarities between sentences containing the present progressive with future time reference and those containing be going to . The reason for adopting this theory is not only because it has provided systematic explanations for several English tense phenomena, but also because it has analyzed the mechanism of interpreting sentences containing other future time expressions such as will and the simple present with future time reference. It is shown that the temporal structures of sentences containing the present progressive and be going to provide a basis for explaining the differences and similarities between their tense phenomena.