How to Find the Sales Tax on an Item

Sales tax is a type of consumption tax charged on many products and services at the point of sale. In most cases, the sales tax is collected by the seller of the product or service at the time of sale and given to a state or local government agency at a later date. Most states and many municipalities currently levy sales taxes.

Instructions

1. Determine your local sales tax rate. The sales tax rate you pay is normally determined by the state and local area where you are purchasing a product or service. If you don't know the local sales tax rate, you can use an online resource to determine the current sales tax rate (see Resources). For example, assume the local sales tax rate is 9.5 percent.

2. Determine the purchase price for the item or service. For example, assume the purchase price of a product is $100.

3. Multiply the local sales tax rate from Step 1 by the purchase price from Step 2. Continuing the same example, $100 x 0.095 = $9.50. This figure represents the sales tax on an item.

References

• Federation of Tax Administrators: FTA Home Page
• Basic-mathematics.com: How to calculate sales tax

Resources

• Zip2Tax: Sales Tax Lookup