But all that is needed is for stores to round the total after tax to the nearest 5 cents, rather than to the nearest cent, as they are at present. So if the total is $2.024, you pay $2; if the total is $2.026, you pay $2.05. And if it is exactly in the middle, you go to the nearest 10 cents: $2.025 becomes $2; $2.075 becomes $2.10. Over the course of a day, it will all even out.
Actually,the next to latest dollar coins, the Sacagawea dollar, is supposedly gold colored. I say supposedly because while they start out gold, they quickly turn to a rather drab brown color. While I accept the color change from shiny copper to dull brown in our pennies, I find it very unattractive for a dollar coin.
Best political way to get rid of the penny. Donate them all to the politicians running for president. Pack them up and send them in. Then it becomes their problem.
I’m thinking of refinishing my garage floor in epoxy, overlaid with US cents.
I’ve eaten in a BBQ shop/restaurant that had wooden tables covered in pennies (hexagonally) and then the pennies covered in clear plastic.
I recall some Congresscodger bewailing the last attempt to stop minting the things as “If we do this, nothing will ever again cost less than a nickel.” Well, let me break it to ya, old fart - nothing costs less than a nickel now. Hell, I can hardly think of anything that costs less than a quarter, can you?
The CPI was 1/5 of its current value as recently as the late '50’s, when a penny was worth what a nickel is today. So are we willing to reset the base coinage to the purchasing power of those Dark Ages or not? The US hasn’t had a fractional-cent coin smaller than a cent since the 19th century, so the comparison goes a lot further than that if you care to make it.
I don’t believe this for a moment. This sort of thing is generally computerised these days anyway, so most stores have got no excuse whatsoever for not being able to calculate the sales tax on an item BEFORE they print off a price tag.
Either that or maybe it’s time you guys all sat down and pulled your tax system out of the 1800s and into the 21st century?
Jackknifed Juggernaut’s link to the New Yorker is an excellent article that covers most of the questions and issues in this thread. It points out that the half-penny was much more valuable at the time it was discontinued than the penny or even nickel is today. And that many American’s don’t consider the penny worthwhile as evidenced by the leave-a-penny jars at cash registers. Obviously the zinc producers have lobbied against dropping the penny under the guise of Americans for Common Cents.
I think at this point it makes a lot of sense to drop both the penny and nickel and require cash transactions to be rounded to a dime. This makes for a more fair rounding method than just the dropping the penny. It seems that the cashless economy is pretty much here and we may as well reap a few extra benefits from it.
I didn’t see this question answered and it is an interesting one. There are a number of people that are hoarding pennies, specifically pre-1982 pennies since those have enough copper in them to make them worth 2 cents. One guy interviewed on NPR had a million of them in his garage. The government passed legislation making it illegal to melt down or export the small denomination coins. Now these penny-hoarders are hoping that the penny will be discontinued.
Here is an interesting quote from the New Yorker article:
I cannot speak for any American states, but here in Canada, the fact that marked prices do not include sales tax has to do with the Constitution. Section 92(2) states that the province can make laws in regards to direct taxation within the province. This would include sales tax, and in Canada, provinces that charge sales tax have chosen to legislate that marked prices are exclusive of sales tax.
Like I said, I’m unfamiliar with American laws about this, but I’m throwing this out as an example just to say that regardless of computerization, the reason sales taxes aren’t included in the price on the tag may have more to do with local law than technical capability.
OK, so when you’re Emperor of the United States and Defender of the Faithful, and gas is an even $3.99 a gallon, how much will you pay for half a gallon? Or a tenth? Or will you also make it illegal to fill 'er up?
Oh, sure of course they could round to the nearest nickel, and I wish they would. But right now they round to the nearest cent, which means we get a lot of pennies back as change. Adding a dollar coin without eliminating the penny would make things worse.
Price tag? I haven’t seen a price tag in years. Everything either has the price printed on the item (like books) or it has a price label on the shelf. For the latter, they certainly could, technologically, put the total price including tax on the shelf, but it would mean pricing things locally in each store, which would cost more and wreak havoc on advertising–no more 99¢ Value Menu at McDonalds!
And why is local sales tax considered 19th century? You prefer filling out a local income tax form?
That would be relevant if each penny were used up after it was first used. But they last a long time - so the cost of the penny has to be amortized over the number of transactions and the length of time they last.
This is an example of tax transparency - Canadian governments have taken the approach that purchasers should know exactly how much they’re paying in tax on the purchase. Plus, some merchants prefer this - they’re able to point out to the purchaser how much of the total price is theirs, and how much is the government’s share.
I remember when the GST came in and Ontario hiked its sales tax, one merchant programmed his tills so the receipt would read: “Brian” for the GST (PM Brian Mulroney), and “Bob” for the Ontario tax (Premier Bob Rae).
News item from Canada: MP to introduce bill to eliminate the penny.
The MP in question is in the Opposition, so not much chance it will pass, but Opposition bills sometimes trigger public debate on an issue.
The only problem with this idea is sales tax. Even if prices are in increments of $0.05, when you add sales tax, you’re back to increments of one cent. So if you get rid of the penny (which we should definitely do), you still have to round.
ETA: I see that this has been mentioned in some of the intervening posts.
Do you think you can add 5% sales tax to a $1.99 item and get a price that is “naturally” a whole number of cents? How about a 6.75% tax?
All we do today is round to the nearest 1/100th of a dollar. There is nothing inherent in the monetary system that requires the existence of cents, it is entirely a product of our choice to have the smallest unit of currency be 1/100th of our base currency.
“Price tag” in this context being “anything displaying the price of a particular product”.
Why not? It’s not really a 99c Value Meal anyway, by the time you add whatever the local sales tax is.
No, but I would prefer a system whereby the price on the item is the complete price I pay for the product, inclusive of all taxes, fees, tariffs, charges, duties, et al.
If I see an item in Target here for $14.95, that’s all I have to pay for it. It’s not $14.95 + some other random number. I don’t care that $1.49 of that is GST. What I care about is knowing how much money needs to come out of my wallet to pay for something without having to then add other arbitrary numbers on top of that everytime I want to go shopping.
We don’t have local income or sales taxes here in Australia- it doesn’t work that way. The closest you get is Stamp Duty when you buy a car or a house (these are set by individual States). Taxes are handled by the Commonwealth Government, who then divvy up the proceeds and dish them out to the States & Territories. I’m also aware this system would be completely unworkable in the US, though.
I’ve got no issue with individual US states setting a state-wide sales tax. But it strikes me as crazy that within a particular state, Fudd County can decide to whack another 1% sales tax on top of that to fund their Dig Up The Roads & Congest Traffic Scheme, and within Fudd County itself Fudd City might add another .05% on top of that because they can, while nearby Fuddville might have a 10c tax on all sticks of gum sold within the city limits to discourage littering.
It’s archaic and un-necessarily complicated, IMHO. Just pick a state-wide Sales Tax, build it into the price, and be done with it.
But at heart, that tax system, while perhaps complicated, is the product of various important political decisions about how to structure one’s government, how to allocate political power between the central, state and local governments, including tax powers. Criticising it because it makes the final price a bit uncertain isn’t going to get much traction, when that minor uncertainty is actually the product of a carefully designed allocation of political power. If people in a state like to have political power divvied up that way, so that local municipalities have independent taxing powers and don’t have to depend on the state government for all their funding, it’s really not much of an argument to say it inconveniences me when I pay for my purchases.
To be clear, mills never existed as coins. They were and are just a “unit of account”.
Dimes are also units of account, in addition to being coins, and I suspect it would be possible to write a check out to somebody payable in dimes (or even mills).
Same here. I do well remember, however, buying a soda or a candy bar for a dime. This would have been around 1967. Public phones charged a dime for local calls until around 1980 (I think).
Having the penny is ridiculous. Even the quarter is hardly worth anything. If you collect all 50 state quarters, you’d have $12.50, enough to buy burgers, fries, and soda for two people at a fast food restaurant. In view of that, why do people insist that we need the penny? What rational justification is there for a coin that is worth about one-four-hundredth of a fast-food meal? Or a thousandth of a haircut?
You mean Blue Chip Stamps?
I haven’t thought about those in decades. For those who don’t know, these were so-called ‘trading stamps’ that retail stores used to give out as a small incentive. They came in a large size, worth one cent, and the small ones were worth one mill. You pasted them into a booklet, and when you had enough booklets filled out, you could buy something from a catalog published by the stamp people. You could also cash them in, but I think you got a better deal if you bought something from the catalog.