I hate to beat this to death but wow! unless i'm way off base - when you sell any item for double what you paid for it you've made 100% percent on it. If you invest in stock and double your money for the year the report would show 100%- I cant see it any other way- so please, someone explain
Ithacaman, think of it this way, you did make a 100% markup from your acquisition price, or another way to look at it you doubled your money on the deal. But by the actual accounting legal definition the % profit made on the sale is the percent of the selling price that the profit on the sale represents. Just as to keep order in firearms there is legal/standard definition of bore size, lands, grooves, etc so everyone can speak in the same terminology and understand what is being referred to, the same needs exists in accounting terminology so everyone stays on the same page.
It doesn't mean it was the "only" way to correctly define it at the time, there could have been many ways available, it simply means that it was THE way it "was" defined and is now the standard way to always compare apples to apples
