How to Separate Sales Tax From Total

Knowing how much you pay in sales taxes may help you save money on your federal income taxes. If you plan to itemize your income taxes, you may want to separate the sales taxes from your total purchases so you can claim the state and local sales tax deduction. If you know the total price and the sales tax rate in the jurisdiction where you made the purchase, you can separate out the sales tax from the total price.

Things You'll Need

• Calculator

Instructions

1. Convert the sales tax percentage to a decimal by dividing it by 100. For example, if the sales tax rate for your jurisdiction is 5.7 percent, you would divide 5.7 by 100 to get 0.057.

2. Add 1 to the sales tax expressed as a percentage. In this example, you would add 1 to 0.057 to get 1.057.

3. Divide the total price by the sales tax rate plus 1 to find the price without sales tax. Continuing the example, if your total price equals $98.30, you would divide $98.30 by 1.057 to get $93.

4. Subtract the price without the sales tax from the total price to separate out the sales tax from the total. Finishing the example, you would subtract $93 from $98.30 to find that the sales tax costs $5.30.

References

• College Cram: Calculating Sales Tax
• Internal Revenue Service: Topic 503 - Deductible Taxes