can someone help me solve this word problem step by step? i just don't understand.?

Question

The sales tax on a answering machine is $12.80 at a tax rate of 8%. Find the purchase price before taxes.
I have no clue how to work this out! thanks!

Answer 1

Well, we can rephrase this question to read thus:

"$12.80 is 8% of the purchase price before taxes."

That can be rewritten again into an algebraic equation:

0.08x = 12.80

This can be solved algebraically. Divide both sides by 0.08. That's 8%.

x = 160

So the purchase price before taxes was $160. I hope that helps!

Answer 2

Let's set up a variable. We need to know the price of the item before taxes, so we will call that "Y."

To find the sales tax of an item, we multiply its price before taxes by the tax rate; in this case that is 8 percent, or ".08".

So, Y times .08 is equal to 12.80.

You'd write this as Y x .08= 12.80

Now you need to get the variable Y all by itself on the left side. Do that by doing the opposite action with .08 to both sides. The oposite of multiplication is division, so divide both sides by .08.

Y x .08/.08= 12.80/.08

That leaves Y= 12.80/.08

or Y= 160

Then go back to the problem.

Y is equal to the price of the item before taxes, which came out to be 160. So the item costs 160 dollars before tax.

Answer 3

The problem is stating that 8% of something equals $12.80

To find out what the cost of the answering machine is just divide $12.80 by 0.08

Answer 4

It's a trick question, she lives in Oregon.