An accountant is determining the amount of sales tax that his client, a shopkeeper, owes. The client reports that lamps were sold at a price of $35.50 and that with sales tax, each one came out to $38.34. What is the sales tax percentage?
Write your answer using a percent sign (%).
To determine the sales tax percentage, we need to find the difference between the price with sales tax and the price without sales tax, and then divide that by the price without sales tax.
The difference between the price with sales tax ($38.34) and the price without sales tax ($35.50) is $38.34 - $35.50 = $2.84.
To find the sales tax percentage, we divide the difference ($2.84) by the price without sales tax ($35.50) and multiply by 100 to express the answer as a percentage:
($2.84 / $35.50) * 100 = (0.08) * 100 = 8%
Therefore, the sales tax percentage is 8%.