If you're passing a dollar bill, it would be 5 people. 0.1*1x=0.5; x=5 If you only have $0.90 after the first pass, because you took out the taxes, then it is more complicated. I don't think there will be a good formula because you have to round to the nearest cent, and rounding error will become very significant. Tax - left 10c - 90c 9c - 81c 8c - 73c 7c - 66c 7c - 59c 6c - 53c 5c - 48c More than half gone after 7 people.