VAT & Sales Tax Calculator

This handles both directions of a VAT or sales tax calculation: add tax to a net (pre-tax) price to find the gross (final) price, or strip tax back out of a gross price to see what the net price actually was — the three numbers stay linked so changing any one recalculates the other two.

Adding tax to a net price

This is the simpler direction: gross = net × (1 + rate ÷ 100). At a 20% rate, a $50 net price becomes $60 gross — the $10 tax is 20% of the net figure, not the gross one.

Removing tax from a gross price — the part people get wrong

Given a final price that already includes tax, you cannot just take 20% off the gross number — that overstates the tax removed. The correct formula divides: net = gross ÷ (1 + rate ÷ 100). At 20% VAT, a $60 gross price has a net price of $60 ÷ 1.20 = $50, and the tax portion is $10 — not $12, which is what naively taking 20% of $60 would wrongly suggest. This reverse case is exactly why the calculator keeps net, tax and gross as three synced fields rather than a single one-way formula.

Rates vary a lot by country

VAT and sales tax rates are not standardised — many EU countries sit around 19–25% VAT, the UK is at 20%, and US sales tax is set state-by-state (and sometimes city-by-city) typically in the 0–10% range with no VAT-style system at all. Set the rate to match your own jurisdiction rather than assuming a default is correct.