Question

A pack of cinnamon-scented pencils sells for $5.00. What is the sales tax rate if the total cost of the pencils is $5.35? The sales tax rate is:

Answer 1

To find the sales tax, you subtract, the cost without the sales tax from the total cost which is 5.35-5. So the sales tax is 35 cents. To find the tax rate, you need to find what percent of the cost without sales tax is 35 cents. So you do 5x=.35. You find x to be .07. And since you need to change that to a percentage, you multiply be 100 and get 7%. Hope this helps. 

Answer 2

The sales tax rate is 7%

Given:
Sales price = 5.00
Total amount paid = 5.35

Sales tax value = Total amount paid - sales price
                          = $5.35 - $5.00 
Sales tax value = $0.35
Sales tax rate = Sales tax / Sales price
                        = 0.35/5
Sales tax rate  = 0.07 or 7%