Most tax calculators only go one direction: price plus tax equals total. Our new VAT / sales tax calculator does that, but it also does the calculation EU shoppers actually search for far more often — going backwards from a tax-inclusive total to the pre-tax price.
That reverse math isn’t “subtract the percentage.” A $321 total that already includes 7% tax breaks down to a $300.00 pre-tax price and $21.00 of tax — not the $298.53 you’d get by wrongly taking 7% of $321. The correct formula divides: pre-tax price = total ÷ (1 + rate/100).
- Add tax — price plus tax, for tax-exclusive pricing like most of the US.
- Remove tax — pull the pre-tax price and embedded tax out of a total, for tax-inclusive pricing like the EU, where retail law requires the shelf price to already include VAT.
- Rate presets — the US placeholder plus Spain (21%), Italy (22%), Greece (24%), the UK (20%), and Germany (19%), or type any custom rate.
Everything runs in your browser, your inputs live in the URL for sharing, and there’s an embeddable version for shopping and finance blogs.