Cardinal Company is considering a five$-$year project requiring a $$2,915,000$ investment in equipment with a useful life of five years and no salvage value. The company$$s discount rate is $12\%.$ The project would provide net operating income in each of five years as follows:

$$

Sales $$2,746,000$

Variable expenses $1,126,000$

Contribution margin $1,620,000$

$$

Fixed expenses:

Advertising, salaries, and other fixed out$-$of$-$pocket costs $$615,000$

Depreciation $583,000$

$$

Total fixed expenses $1,198,000$

Net operating income $$422,000$

$$

$$

$1.$ What is the present value of the project$$s annual net cash inflows?

Note: Round your final answer to the nearest whole dollar amount.

$2.$ What is the profitability index for this project?

Note: Round your answer to $2$ decimal places.

$3.$ What is the project$$s simple rate of return for each of the five years?

Note: Round your answer to $2$ decimal places.

$4.$ If the company$$s discount rate was $14\%$ instead of $12\%,$ would you expect the project's net present value to be higher, lower, or the same?

$5.$ If the equipment had a salvage value of $$300,000$ at the end of five years, would you expect the project's$$net present value to be higher, lower, or the same?

$6.$ Assume a postaudit showed all estimates $($including total sales$)$ were exactly correct except for the variable expense ratio, which actually turned out to be $50\%.$ What was the project$$s actual simple rate of return?

Note: Round your answer to $2$ decimal places.