Answer - $9.76 before tax.
The first thing we must do is find out the amount spent on tax and subtract from our total. Our equation will be 6 of 51.94. Which is 3.1164. This means that 3.1164 is tax, however money on counts from the first two digits after the decimal. So we will round our second 1 to two, leaving us with $3.12 of tax. Now that we have our tax, we subtract from our total. 51.94-3.12 =48.82. Now that we have the amount just spend on food without tax, all we have left to do is to divide the cost of the meal into the 5 friends to figure out how much one meal was. 48.82 / 5 is 9.76400, which once again, we can only have the first two numbers after the decimal. Since the 4 is after the 6 the six will stay the same, which means that each meal was $9.76. To check, we can multiply 9.76 x times 5 which is 48.8. Then add our tax, 3.12, which is 51.92. Our amount spent is skewed, so we can either pay the 2 cent as a tax or the two cent for each meal, but since there we five guests that means that each meal was $9.76 before tax
I hope this helps, GOOD LUCK!!