Question

1. How much will my total cost be if Ipay 5% sales tax on a subtotal of$28.95?

Answer 1

We will investigate the application of taxes on receipts.

We are given that a sales tax rate ( r ) is applied on all the customer receipt purchase. The sales tax applied on the bill is:

$r\text{ = 5\%}$

The value of the receipt-purchase ( p ) is given as follows:

$p\text{ = \ 28.95}$

We will first determine the sales tax amount ( s ) applied on the purchase receipt ( p ) by considering the applicable tax rate ( r ) as follows:

$s\text{ = }\frac{r}{100}\cdot p$

We will use the above relation to determine the sales tax ( s ) amount:

$\begin{gathered} s\text{ = }\frac{5}{100}\cdot28.95 \\ \\ s\text{ = 0.05}\cdot28.95 \\ s=\text{ \ 1.4475} \end{gathered}$

The sales tax amount ( s ) is the extra amount that a customer has to pay over the value of the purchased items.

The total amount that a customer pays at any retail or receipt has the following costs:

$Amount\text{ to be paid = Value of purchase items ( p ) + Sales Tax ( s )}$

We will use the above relation to determine the total cost as follows:

$\begin{gathered} \text{Total cost = p + s} \\ \text{Total cost = 28.95 + 1.4475} \\ \text{Total cost = \ 30.3975} \end{gathered}$

Therefore, the answer is:

$\text{\ }30.3975$