I am working on a question and I keep getting my net of tax amount wrong. I am to report the Gain on sale from discontinued operations, (net of tax) the amount with tax is 15200. The tax rate is 33% and The amount net of tax that is correct is 5494. How do I arrive at this number? If I simply multiply 15200 by 33%, I get the wrong answer. Can anyone help me with this?

Something's out of sync in your numbers, or else there's additional info in the problem you omitted. For example, if (as stated) the pre-tax gain is 15,200 while the after-tax gain is just 5,494, that indicates that a tax bite of 9,706, which is substantially north of 50% of the pre-tax gain (whereas your info indicates an effective tax rate of 33%).

Letting P denote a pre-tax gain; t represent the tax rate (as a decimal); and A denote the after-tax gain, P and A have the equivalent relationships

A = P x (1 - t)

P = A / (1 - t)= P x (1 - t)

A = [bbcode][/bbcode]/ (1 - t)

So if the pre-tax gain [bbcode][/bbcode]is 15,200 the after-tax gain [bbcode][/bbcode]would be 10,184. On the other hand, if the correct after-tax gain is 5,494 then the pre-tax gain must be 8,200.

Go back and check the problem carefully.

Just a quickie note (cause I agree the info doesn't add up somewhere), the "net of tax" amount isn't the 33%. It's after the 33% has been taken off. So you seem to be confusing what "net of tax" means.