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American Sales Tax Calculator

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©1996-2017 Roedy Green of Canadian Mind Products
Unfortunately, Oracle has effectively decommitted Applets. This means you can no longer run the various CMP programs in a browser. You must download them and install them. You must have the most recent Java JRE (Java Runtime Environment) 1.8.0_131 32-bit or 64-bit. It no longer matters which browser you use.
Oracle has effectively decommited Applets, so this Applet will no longer run online in your browser, but it is a hybrid you can also download, install and run it on your own machine as standalone application. It will start and run faster if you do that. It will also work safely even if you have disabled Java in your browser.

American sales taxes are complicated to the point of comedy. One of the odd features is sometimes the vendor remits the tax and sometimes the buyer is supposed to do it. However, in practice nearly all buyers forget to. For large ticket items, like yachts, the vendor always collects and remits the tax. For smaller items, the vendor only collects the tax if the buyer is in the same district.

If you are a business, you don’t have to collect sales taxes from people in other states unless you have a business presence in that state. In that case, you must collect just the state tax, not the local tax.

After 12 years, the program is finally complete. It now handles sales taxes for all American states, counties and cities. The task now is to correct errors and keep it up to date. If you see any errors, omissions or out of date information, please let me know.

American sales taxes are preposterously complicated. Every town can have a different rate, every county and every state. Visitors to a town have no idea what to expect. The rates are not posted in standard format anywhere on the Internet in computer-readable format. Every state provides the information in a different computer-hostile way. In many cases I had to guess what the tax rate was, making a lawyerly call on some obscure explanation. Businesses may have to remit sales taxes to three different bureaucracies.

I hope someday the feds do an honest taxes measure where all federal, state and local taxes must be posted in standard computer-friendly format so that your cell-phone can accurately compute the sales or any other tax.

To check the rates, just enter a sale amount of $100.00 and the tax amounts will equal the percentages.

If you notice any errors, please let me know.

The calculator is also available with Java source to download. It is designed to be cannibalised, so that you can use whatever parts of the calculator source code you want in your own code, e.g. a shopping cart. There are notes in the source on precisely how the taxes are calculated.

Applet failed to run. No Java 1.8 or later plug-in found.

Java Requirements and Troubleshooting

AmericanTax is a signed Java Applet (that can also be run as an application) to American Sales Tax Calculator. You are welcome to install it on your own website. If it does not work…
  1. For this Applet hybrid to work, you must click grant/accept/always run on this site/I accept the risk to give it permission to let you copy/paste. If you refuse to grant permission, the program may crash with an inscrutable stack dump on the console complaining about AccessController.checkPermission.
  2. In the Java Control Panel security tab, click Start ⇒ Control Panel ⇒ Programs ⇒ Java ⇒ Security, configure medium security to allow self-signed and vanilla unsigned applets to run. If medium is not available, or if Java security is blocking you from running the program, configure high security and add http://mindprod.com to the Exception Site List at the bottom of the security tab.
  3. Often problems can be fixed simply by clicking the reload button on your browser.
  4. Make sure you have both JavaScript and Java enabled in your browser.
  5. Make sure the Java in your browser is enabled in the security tab of the Java Control panel. Click Start ⇒ Control Panel ⇒ Programs ⇒ Java ⇒ Security ⇒ Enable Java Content in the browser.
  6. This signed Java Applet (that can also be run as an application) needs 32-bit or 64-bit Java 1.8 or later. For best results use the latest 1.8.0_131 Java.
  7. You also need a recent browser.
  8. It works under any operating system that supports Java e.g. W2K, XP, W2003, Vista, W2008, W7-32, W7-64, W8-32, W8-64, W2012, W10-32, W10-64, Linux, LinuxARM, LinuxX86, LinuxX64, Ubuntu, Solaris, SolarisSPARC, SolarisSPARC64, SolarisX86, SolarisX64 and OSX
  9. You should see the Applet hybrid above looking much like this screenshot. If you don’t, the following hints should help you get it working:
  10. Optionally, you may permanently install the Canadian Mind Products code-signing certificate so you don’t have to grant each time.
  11. If the above Applet hybrid appears to freeze-up, click Alt-Esc repeatedly to check for any buried permission dialog box.
  12. If you have certificate troubles, check the installed certificates and remove or update any obsolete or suspected defective certificates. The only certificate used by this program is mindprodcert2017rsa.cer.
  13. Especially if this Applet hybrid has worked before, try clearing the browser cache and rebooting.
  14. To ensure your Java is up to date, check with Wassup. First, download it and run it as an application independent of your browser, then run it online as an Applet to add the complication of your browser.
  15. If the above Applet hybrid does not work, check the Java console for error messages.
  16. If the above Applet hybrid does not work, you might have better luck with the downloadable version available below.
  17. If you are using Mac OS X and would like an improved Look and Feel, download the QuaQua look & feel from randelshofer.ch/quaqua. UnZip the contained quaqua.jar and install it in ~/Library/Java/Extensions or one of the other ext dirs.
  18. Upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer or another browser.
  19. Click the Information bar, and then click Allow blocked content. Unfortunately, this also allows dangerous ActiveX code to run. However, you must do this in order to get access to perfectly-safe Java Applets running in a sandbox. This is part of Microsoft’s war on Java.
  20. Try upgrading to a more recent version of your browser, or try a different browser e.g. Firefox, SeaMonkey, IE or Avant.
  21. If you still can’t get the program working click the red HELP button below for more detail.
  22. If you can’t get the above Applet hybrid working after trying the advice above and from the red HELP button below, have bugs to report or ideas to improve the program or its documentation, please send me an email atemail Roedy Green.
Java powered   Get New Java   Get New Browser   Help
PackageVersionReleasedLicenceLanguageNotes 
americantax
American State Sales Tax Calculator		 4.1 2013-04-04 free Java
more info ❘ precis ❘ screenshot ❘ browse source repository
for the current version of American State Sales Tax Calculator.
Note it may require adding tables for the states/counties you need. It comes with complete state and county tax tables for all 50 states.
download 1,491K zip for American State Sales Tax Calculator Java source, compiled class files, jar and documentation to run on your own machine either as an application or an Applet.

Runs on any OS that supports Java e.g. W2K, XP, W2003, Vista, W2008, W7-32, W7-64, W8-32, W8-64, W2012, W10-32, W10-64, Linux, LinuxARM, LinuxX86, LinuxX64, Ubuntu, Solaris, SolarisSPARC, SolarisSPARC64, SolarisX86, SolarisX64 and OSX.

First install the most recent Java.

To install, extract the zip download with WinZip, (or similar unzip utility) into any directory you please, often J:\ — ticking off the use folder names option.

To check out the corresponding source from the Subversion repository, use the TortoiseSVN repo-browser to
access americantax source in repository with [Tortoise] Subversion client on wush.net/svn/mindprod/com/mindprod/americantax/.

After you have installed the jar, you can run it as an application. Type:

java -jar J:\com\mindprod\americantax\americantax.jar

adjusting as necessary to account for where the jar file is.

download ASP PAD XML program description for the current version of American State Sales Tax Calculator.

$1989.00 US donated so far. If the CMP utilities solved your problem, please donate a buck or two, or donate to one of the charities featured in the footer public service ads throughout the website and get a tax receipt.

American State Sales Tax Calculator is free. Full source included. You may even include the source code, modified or unmodified in free/commercial open source/proprietary programs that you write and distribute. Non-military use only.
  
 

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