Sales Tax
$7.25
Total Price
$107.25
Whether you are running a retail business, pricing products for an e-commerce store, or simply trying to figure out how much an item will cost at the register, calculating sales tax is a daily necessity. Our Sales Tax Calculator provides two essential functions: adding tax to a net price to find the final checkout total, and reversing tax from a gross total to find the original product price.
Adding tax is the most common calculation. To find the total cost of an item, you must first calculate the tax amount and add it to the original price. The formula is: Tax Amount = (Net Price × Tax Rate) / 100. For example, if you buy a $100 item in a state with a 7.25% tax rate, the tax is $7.25. Adding that to the $100 net price gives you a gross total of $107.25.
Sometimes, you only have the final receipt total and need to determine how much of that was tax. This is crucial for accounting, expense reports, and bookkeeping. To reverse the tax, you must divide the gross total by (1 + the tax rate as a decimal). The formula is: Net Price = Gross Total / (1 + (Tax Rate / 100)). For example, if your receipt totals $107.25 and the tax rate is 7.25%, you divide 107.25 by 1.0725. This gives you a net price of exactly $100. The difference ($7.25) is the tax you paid.
Sales tax and VAT are often confused. In the United States, Sales Tax is only applied once, at the final point of sale to the end consumer. Business-to-business transactions are usually tax-exempt. Conversely, VAT (used in the UK, Europe, and most of the world) is applied at every stage of the supply chain where value is added. Our calculator handles both types of tax math flawlessly, whether you are calculating a 7% US sales tax or a 20% UK VAT charge.
In the US, there is no single national sales tax. Instead, tax rates are determined by state, county, and city governments. This is why a product purchased in Los Angeles, California, will have a different final price than the same product purchased in Austin, Texas. Our tool includes quick-select buttons for some of the highest-population states, but you can manually input any exact local tax rate to ensure your calculations are 100% accurate to your specific municipality.