Let's think about what happens when you find the price after tax. Let the price before tax be \(p\). The tax rate is \(7.4 \% = .074\), so the tax part of the total price is \(.074p\). Adding that onto the original price, we see that
\(p + .074p = \$29.54\)
\(1.074p = \$29.54\)
So, we can just divide each side by \(1.074\) to get the original price, which rounded to two decimal places is \(\bf \$27.50\).
