How do you give an example of the sale price of an item and the total cost including sales tax if the tax rate is 5.75% and the item is 25% off?
Answers
Example of a Problem:
Let's say there is a pair of pants which are regularly priced for
$
20
.
The store is having a 25% off sale for all items in the store.
The sales tax on all items in the store is 5.75%
How much do you need to pay for the pair of pants?
Solution to the Problem:
The formula for the cost of the item on sale is:
c
=
p
−
(
s
⋅
p
)
Where:
c
is the sale price of the items. What we will solve for.
p
is the regular price of the item. $20 for this problem.
s
is the sales percentage. 25% for this problem. "Percent" or "%" means "out of 100" or "per 100", Therefore 25% can be written as
25
100
.
Substituting and calculating
c
gives:
c
=
$
20
−
(
25
100
⋅
$
20
)
c
=
$
20
−
$
500
100
c
=
$
20
−
$
5
c
=
$
15
Now, to find the total you would pay, with tax, we use this formula:
t
=
c
+
(
r
×
c
)
Where:
t
is the total amount paid with tax. What we are solving for.
c
is the cost of the item.
$
15
from the above calculation.
r
is the tax rate. 5.75% for this problem. Again, "percent" or "%" means "out of 100" or "per 100", Therefore 5.75% can be written as
5.75
100
.
Substituting into this formula and calculating
t
gives:
t
=
$
15
+
(
5.75
100
×
$
15
)
t
=
$
15
+
$
86.25
100
t
=
$
15
+
$
0.86
rounded to the nearest penny.
t
=
$
15.86
The total paid for the pants after the sale and tax are taken into account is:
$
15.86