Jerry bought a pool

Question

Jerry bought a pool that was 40% of the original price. They charge him 10% tax and his final cost was $924. What was the original price of the pool math

Answer 1

This is a 'working backwards' problem. You know the final price, the number of steps to work backwards (two steps), and their respective step changes (10% and 40%, respectively). You want to know the original price of the pool.

First step: Final price is $924, tax was 10%. The pre-tax price was x and was taxed at 10% to equal $924, so

x + x*0.1 = $924

Another way to write this is: x*1.1 = $924. Solving for x, you get $840. This is the pre-tax price.

Second step: Pre-tax price is $840, it was 40% of the original price. Converting this statement to an equation with 'original price' as the variable 'y':

$840 = 0.4*y ($840 is 40% of the original price). Solving for y, you get $2,100.

The original price of the pool comes out to be $2,100.