Set tab position relative to column/table cell width?

Question

I'm creating a form that, not surprisingly, has lots of "blanks" for users to fill out, many of them with $ signs preceding them, like so:
Mortgage $ _________________
Credit cards $ _______________
Loans $ ___________________
So the traditional nice way of doing this is to set a right tab at the right edge of the column with an underscore for a tab leader. I've set up a paragraph style with the tab set like this, so all I have to do is '$'-tab to fill the space.
But other sections of this form use multiple columns, something like:
                    Applicant 1                    Applicant 2
Mortgage      $ _______________        $ _______________
Credit cards  $ _______________        $ _______________
Loans           $ _______________        $ _______________
So I put these into tables.
Problem is, these columns are a different width than the others; and I have other widths throughout the document. I'd prefer not to have to create a new paragraph style for each column width. What I really need is a way to set a tab not at a fixed location but "at the right edge of the column" or something similar.
Is there a way to do this in InDesign?
Thanks.

Answer 1

What you want is a "right indent" tab (Shift + Tab). These flaot with the column width, but becasue you don't set them in the tabs panel or the style definition, you can't easily apply a leader. You can however apply an underline to the tab itself, which a lot of us think is nicer, anyway. Use a character style to do that for efficiency (and you can do it in a nested style).