Finance

🧮 Sales Tax Calculator

Both directions, because both come up: add a tax rate to a net price, or pull the tax back out of a gross total to see what you actually paid for the goods.

Add tax to a price

—Tax
—Total with tax

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Remove tax from a total (reverse)

—Price before tax
—Tax included

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Reversing tax is not the same as subtracting the percentage — see the first FAQ for why.

About the Sales Tax Calculator

Sales tax, VAT and GST are all consumption taxes, and the single most common mistake is working backwards. People subtract the rate from the tax-inclusive total, which always understates the tax and overstates the pre-tax price, because the tax was charged on the smaller pre-tax amount rather than on the total.

This calculator does both directions properly: forward to add tax to a net price, and reverse to divide it back out of a gross total. Rates are free-form, so it works for a US state sales tax, UK VAT, Australian GST, or any other percentage.

Frequently asked questions

How do I remove sales tax from a total?

Divide the total by (1 + rate/100) — do not subtract the percentage. At 8.25%, a 270.63 total is 270.63 / 1.0825 = 250.00 before tax. Subtracting 8.25% from the total instead would give 248.30, which is wrong: the tax was charged on the pre-tax amount, not on the total.

What is the difference between sales tax, VAT and GST?

They are all consumption taxes collected at the point of sale. US sales tax is normally added on top of the displayed price, while VAT (Europe, UK) and GST (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore) are usually already included in the shelf price — which is exactly why the reverse mode matters more outside the US.

Can it handle compound tax or two rates at once?

It handles one rate at a time. For compound tax, where a second tax is charged on top of the first, run the 'add tax' step and then feed the resulting total back in as the pre-tax price for the second rate.