Sales Tax Worksheet: Financial Literacy, Life Skills, Percent Math

This one-page worksheet is a quick and easy personal financial literacy and life skills lesson for your students who are in grades 6 and up. Make sure your students will understand what sales taxes are, what they are applied to, how to calculate them, and what the sales tax is in their local area. This is the kind of math and life skills learning that students will actually use for years to come.

This lesson introduces your class to:

• The definition of sales tax.

• A variety of worldwide rates (that range from 0 – 25%) in places in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

• Which goods and services are exempt from sales taxes.

Then, seven practice math questions are included for students to try calculating sales tax themselves. They could use a calculator, a variety of mental math strategies, or complete the questions by hand using percentages written as decimals.

Finally, students are asked to research the local sales tax percentage in their local area.

This lesson goes well with other personal financial literacy activities in my store:

Taxes, Tips, Sales:

This lesson teaches students three mental math or calculating strategies for figuring out applied percentages when faced with taxes, tips, and sale prices.

Inflation

This handout and worksheet teaches students what inflation is, how it is measured, how it varies, and why it matters. Then they can complete sample math questions about inflation using percentages.

Renting vs Buying a Home

This is one of my most popular lessons. It teaches students about the unrecovered costs that occur for both renting and buying homes and helps them calculate which might be a better deal in their local area.

Income Tax

Teach your students how to complete their income taxes in both Canada or the US. This comprehensive lesson includes definitions and information, three sample tax profiles, and a complete and simplified income tax form that high school students can easily complete!