This tool calculates sales tax and the tax-included total from a displayed price. It also calculates restaurant tips at 10%, 15% and 20% at the same time. No registration is needed, and it is free.
With "Get rate from current location", the tool uses your browser's location to identify the city and fill in its tax rate. If you do not allow location access, or the city cannot be identified, enter the rate by hand.
Presets are included for major cities such as Fremont, San Jose and San Francisco, and for Japan (10% consumption tax and 8% reduced rate).
Tax rates vary by purchase and delivery location. The built-in rates are estimates. Always check the tax shown at checkout. Shipping and fees are separate.
At restaurants in the United States, a tip is usually added to the meal price. This tool shows tip amounts and totals for 10%, 15% and 20% side by side.
You can switch the tip basis between the pre-tax price and the tax-included price, enter any percentage you like, and enter the number of people to see the amount per person.
Tip customs vary by restaurant and service. Treat the amounts shown as a guide.
Sales tax spread in the United States during the Great Depression, when state revenues fell and states needed new sources of money.
Mississippi was the first state to introduce a broad sales tax, in 1932. Many other states followed in the 1930s. The last state to introduce one was Vermont, in 1969.
Today, 45 states and Washington, D.C. have a statewide sales tax. The five states without one are Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon, although local taxes may still apply in those states.
Japan's consumption tax began at 3% in 1989. It rose to 5% in 1997, 8% in 2014 and 10% in 2019. Since 2019, an 8% reduced rate has applied to food and similar items.
Tipping is said to come from small gifts that European nobles gave their servants in the Middle Ages.
It spread in the United States in the second half of the 19th century, when wealthy Americans returning from trips to Europe brought the custom home.
After the Civil War, some employers hired newly freed workers at little or no wage and left them to live on tips. Railroad porters carried the custom across the country as their work spread.
Later, special minimum-wage rules that assume tips became part of the restaurant industry, so tips are now built into workers' income. Debate about tipping continues today.