Percents: Percentages in Real Life

Calculating salestaxes

What are sale taxes?

Depending on where you live, you might pay a sales tax on the things you buy. A sales tax is an extra charge added to the price of an item. The amount you pay in tax is almost always a percentage of that price. Suppose you buy a $40 coffeemaker in an area where the sales tax is 5%. When you check out, 5% of $40 would be added to your total price. How much would you pay in total? Let's find out!

EX.1:

Let's say you want to buy a $40 coffee maker, and the sales tax is 5%. Then what would the final price be? Click the buttons to reveal the steps!

5% X 40.00

Whenever you see the phrase "of something" in a math sentence, it's usually a hint that you'll need to multiply

0.05 X 40.00

Before we can do that, we'll need to convert 5% into a decimal. We'll move the decimal point two places to the left, so 5% becomes 0.05.

5% OF $40.00

Sales tax is a percentage of the price of the item. This means the sales tax is six percent of thirty dollars

0.05 x 40.00=2.00

Now we can multiply: 0.05 times 40 equals 2.00

0.05 OF 40.00=2.00

So the sales tax is $2.00. Another way to say this is that 5% of $40.00 is $2.00

$2.00 plus $40.00 equals $42.00.

$40.00 2.00

$42.00

Remember, sales tax is an extra charge added to the price of an item. So we'll add the sales tax to our original price

$40.00 2.00

The final price of the coffee maker is $42.00 after adding sales tax.