Somerville Corporation is considering investing in specialized equipment costing $618,000. The equipment has a useful life of 5 years and a residual value of $55,000. Depreciation is calculated using the straight-line method. The expected net cash inflows from the investment are:

Year 1	$250,000
Year 2	$190,000
Year 3	$152,000
Year 4	$112,000
Year 5	$95,000
	$799,000

Somerville Corporation's required rate of return is 14%.

Is the internal rate of return of the investment equal to, higher than, or lower than 14%? (The present values for this scenario are as follows: Year 1 - 0.877, Year 2 - 0.769, Year 3 - 0.675, Year 4 - 0.592 and Year 5 - 0.519.)

A.

Lower than 14%

B.

Higher than 14%

C.

Equal to 14%

D.

Cannot be determined from the given data