Finance
Add sales tax to a price, or work backward from a tax-inclusive total to the original price.
Sales tax varies by state and even city — enter your local combined rate (state + county + city).
Total (with tax)
—
Enter a price and tax rate
A $250 purchase with a combined 8.25% sales tax (a common rate in parts of Texas) comes to $270.63 total — $20.63 in tax. Working backward, if a receipt shows $270.63 as the total and you know the rate was 8.25%, dividing by 1.0825 correctly recovers the original $250 price — simply subtracting 8.25% of $270.63 would give the wrong answer.
Unlike a national VAT or GST, US sales tax is set by states, and most states also allow counties and cities to add their own local rates on top — which is why the same purchase can cost noticeably different amounts in total depending on exactly where it's made, even within the same state. Nine states charge no sales tax at all, while combined rates elsewhere can exceed 10%. There's no substitute for checking your specific location's actual combined rate.
Sales tax in the US is set at the state level, and often stacked with additional county and city rates on top — meaning the combined rate varies not just by state but by exact location within a state. There's no single national rate to default to, which is why the rate field is left for you to enter your local combined rate.
Your state's department of revenue website typically publishes combined state+local rates by zip code, or it's often printed on a recent receipt from a local purchase.
Use the "Extract from total" mode — enter the tax-inclusive total and the rate, and it divides by (1 + rate/100) to find the original pre-tax price, rather than incorrectly subtracting the tax percentage directly from the total.