Select a per-unit or percentage-tax solve, or explore the stated incidence, business-margin and comparison scenarios. Enter your own tax amounts; the calculator does not determine jurisdiction-specific tax owed.

Arithmetic using your entered tax, not a determination of tax owed. Use one currency and matching quantity units. Quantities may be fractional; no exemptions, jurisdiction rules or demand changes are applied to billing totals.

Optional settings

Optional only for per-unit solves; enables price totals.

Related Calculators

Per Unit Tax Formula

The following formulas are used to calculate total tax when a tax is charged on a perโ€‘unit basis (a specific tax). If you instead have a percentage tax rate (adโ€‘valorem), you can convert it to a perโ€‘unit amount using the unit price.

TT = tau ร— Q TT = UP ร— (TR / 100) ร— Q

Variables:

  • TT is the total tax ($)
  • ฯ„ is the tax per-unit ($/unit)
  • Q is the quantity of items (units)
  • UP is the unit price ($) (used for percentage/adโ€‘valorem taxes)
  • TR is the tax rate (%) (divide by 100 to convert to decimal form)

To calculate the total tax for a perโ€‘unit (specific) tax, multiply the tax per-unit (ฯ„) by the quantity (Q). If you have a percentage tax rate instead, convert the rate to decimal form (TR/100), multiply by the unit price (UP) to get the perโ€‘unit tax, and then multiply by Q.

What is Per Unit Tax?

A per-unit tax (also called a specific tax) is a fixed amount of tax charged on each unit of a product or service (for example, $0.50 per gallon). The total tax is the perโ€‘unit tax multiplied by the number of units purchased. This differs from an adโ€‘valorem tax (such as many sales taxes), which is charged as a percentage of the itemโ€™s price.

How to Calculate Per Unit Tax?

The following steps outline how to calculate the total tax on a per-unit basis.

  1. Determine the tax per-unit (ฯ„) in dollars per-unit.
  2. Determine the quantity (Q) of items.
  3. Use the perโ€‘unit formula: TT = ฯ„ ร— Q.
  4. If you are starting from a percentage tax rate instead, convert it to decimal form (TR/100) and compute the perโ€‘unit tax: ฯ„ = UP ร— (TR/100).
  5. Finally, calculate the total tax (TT) in dollars.
  6. After inserting the variables and calculating the result, check your answer with the calculator above.

Example Problem : 

Use the following variables as an example problem to test your knowledge.

Unit Price (UP) = $50

Tax Rate (TR) = 8%

Quantity (Q) = 5

Perโ€‘unit tax (ฯ„) = UP ร— (TR/100) = 50 ร— 0.08 = $4 per-unit, so total tax (TT) = ฯ„ ร— Q = 4 ร— 5 = $20.