After-Tax Return On Sales

Another way of saying "earnings," more or less.

In this context, the term is focusing on profitability and/or profit margins…i.e. the ability to turn a dollar of revenue into however many cents after everything, including taxes.

Return on sales divides a company's level of profit by its total sales figure. The result is a percent. The higher the percent, the higher level of profitability the company is producing.

The calculation is simply after-tax income and sales in the denominator.