Plant Company is contemplating the purchase of a new piece of equipment for $59,000. Plant is in the 30% income tax bracket. Predicted annual after-tax cash inflows from this investment are $16,000, $14,000, $15,000, $15,000 and $5,000 for years 1 through 5, respectively. The firm uses straight-line depreciation with no residual value at the end of five years.

The payback period in years (rounded to the nearest 10^th of a year) for this proposed investment is (assume that the after-tax cash inflows occur evenly throughout the year)