Sales Tax Calculator

Adding tax and removing it are different sums

Adding sales tax is a multiplication: price times rate, added to the price. Removing it is a division, not a subtraction, because the tax was calculated on the smaller pre-tax figure rather than on the total you are holding. Getting this backwards is the most common receipt error, and it always understates the pre-tax price.

The gap is small on one coffee and material on a laptop. At 8.25 percent, subtracting the rate from a 2,000 total gives 1,835 when the correct answer is 1,847.58 — a 12.58 difference that will not reconcile with the invoice.

Worked example 1: adding tax at the register

A 40.00 item in a city with a 6.25 percent state rate and 2.00 percent local rate faces a combined 8.25 percent. Tax = 40 x 0.0825 = 3.30. Total = 43.30. Entering 2 in the local rate field is what makes this match the receipt, because the state figure alone would predict 42.50.

Worked example 2: reclaiming the pre-tax price

Your receipt says 43.30 and you need the net figure for an expense claim. Switch the mode to "total after tax": 43.30 / 1.0825 = 40.00 net, 3.30 tax. The division undoes the multiplication exactly, which subtraction never does.

Worked example 3: comparing two states

The same 1,200 laptop costs 1,275 in Texas at the 6.25 percent state rate before local additions, and exactly 1,200 in Oregon, which levies no sales tax at all. Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Alaska are the other zero-rate states, though Alaska allows local taxes that can still push a purchase above the sticker price.

States with no statewide sales tax

What the state rate does not include

Every rate in the dropdown is the statewide base. Counties, cities and special districts add their own on top, and the combined figure can be far higher: parts of Louisiana and Alabama exceed 10 percent once local taxes are counted, while Colorado's 2.9 percent state rate hides local additions that more than double it. Look up the rate for the exact ZIP code of the sale and enter the extra in the local field.

Rates also change, usually at the start of a quarter, and categories complicate things further: many states exempt groceries or prescription medicine, tax prepared food at a higher rate, or run temporary sales tax holidays for school supplies. This calculator applies one flat rate to one amount, which is right for a typical retail purchase and wrong for a mixed basket of exempt and taxable goods.

Treat the output as an estimate for planning and checking receipts. For filing, remittance or anything a tax authority will read, use the current published rate for your jurisdiction and, when the amounts matter, a professional.