Sales tax calculator.
Add tax to a price — or pull the tax back out of a tax-included total.
Adding and removing sales tax
Adding tax is a single step: multiply the price by the tax rate to get the tax, then add it on — $100 at 7.5% is $7.50 tax, for a $107.50 total. Going the other way is the part people miss. To find the pre-tax price hidden inside a tax-included total, you divide rather than subtract: total ÷ (1 + rate). So a $107.50 receipt at 7.5% breaks down to $107.50 ÷ 1.075 = $100 plus $7.50 tax. Subtracting 7.5% of $107.50 would give the wrong answer, because the tax was charged on the smaller pre-tax figure. US sales tax varies by state, county and city, so use your exact local combined rate.
A worked sales tax example
Say a jacket is listed at $80 and your combined local rate is 8.25%. Convert the rate to a decimal (8.25% = 0.0825), multiply to get the tax — $80 × 0.0825 = $6.60 — and add it on for a $86.60 total. To check a receipt that only shows the $86.60 total, back the tax out: $86.60 ÷ 1.0825 = $80.00 pre-tax, confirming $6.60 in tax. There is no single national US rate: five states (Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Alaska) charge no statewide sales tax, while combined state-plus-local rates elsewhere run past 10%. Groceries, clothing and prescriptions are often taxed at a reduced rate or exempted, so a posted rate may not apply to every item on a bill.