Let's call the store value as s and the wholesale price as w. A store prices tapes by raising the wholesale price 50%(0.5 in decimals) and adding 25 cents, writing this as an equation, we have
If we invert the equation we're going to find the the wholesale price as a function of the store price.
Now, to find the wholesale price if the sales price is $1.99, we just need to evaluate s = 1.99 on the function we created.
The wholesale price is $1.16.