Nope, it will not run as you would have expected The flow is incorrect and you forgot some line treminators. Here, I rearranged it for you:
Code:
#include <iostream.h>
int main()
{
const float salestax = 0.06;
float numberitems, costperitem, discountrate, totalcost;
float taxdue, amountdue, taxrate, newtotal;
cout<<"enter cost per item";
cin>> costperitem;
cout<<"enter number of items";
cin>> numberitems;
cout<<"enter discount rate";
cin>> discountrate;
totalcost = numbitems * costperitem;
newtotal = totalcost - (discountrate * totalcost);
/*You forgot to compute the taxrate*/;
taxdue = newtotal * taxrate;
amountdue = newtotal + taxdue;
cout<< "Your amount due is"<< amountdue;
return 0;
}