A couple reasons - the Mint reduced production after implementing COVID safeguards for its employees. (The Mint is back at full production since mid-June.)
The Federal Reserve also says consumers are depositing fewer coins at banks, perhaps out of fear of handling money (and so have been paying by credit card and mobile more).
Of course it’s Covid. I’m considered essential and therefore have been going to work every morning during this. But coining money isn’t. No wonder I drink. But thanks for the reply. 
In the UK VAT is always included in the advertised price in retail stores. Costco here is technically a wholesaler selling to smaller stores, restaurants etc. All of their prices are shown ex VAT because a registered business can reclaim the VAT in their accounts.
It is, however, possible to get a card as a retail buyer so you have to be wary of apparent bargains. VAT is currently 20% for most non food items, but it gets complicated with things like biscuits. Plain biscuits are VATable but chocolate covered are not.
When I first got married, I used to shop at a butcher, who always knocked the odd pence off purchases, reducing them to the nearest 50p. £10.38 would be rounded down to £10.00 etc. I am sure that whatever this cost him was more than made up by the extra business it bought in.
These days, with so few people using cash, I guess it wouldn’t work.
Businesses are also doing fewer bank runs and implementing card-only transactions, while others haven’t reopened yet. So any coins they do have are just sitting in the safe rather than going back to the bank to be rolled and redistributed.
They don’t necessarily round up; if you are owed one or two cents in change, you get nothing, but if you are owed three or four cents in change, you get a nickel. And this only applies to cash transactions; if you pay by credit card or debit card, there is no rounding.
US retailers sometimes do a particular promotion as a sales gimmick - “Shop at *** and pay NO sales tax through Monday …”. In the fine print you will find wording to the effect that the sales tax is included in the listed price. So it’s legal to do. Apparently, what they usually do in these promotions is subtract the sales tax percentage from the listed price, and pay that to the government, which actually means the retailer is overpaying by a bit.
If the prices on the shelves include tax, the SNAP shoppers can’t know the price they are going to pay-making it harder for them to know what they can spend.
I take this to understand that SNAP shoppers don’t pay sales tax then. If that’s the case, then I would print both prices (without tax, and with tax) on the labels.
Tripler
Admittedly, I don’t know how SNAP works, or the tax effects on the program.
And right now, non-SNAP shoppers - that is, most people - don’t know how much they’re going to pay when they walk into a store. Either way, somebody is going to have to do some math.
Since clearly you understand that there are different tax districts (state, city, county, city, special tax areas withing cities, etc.) you should understand that will mean for a national chain a different set of prices for each and every store based on their location. There is a cost to calculating all those different prices, printing different signs, etc.
The store I work at is in an industry were a good profit would be 3% and an excellent one would be 4%. It’s not cost-effective.
Again - you will need a different price for each and every store due to variability in tax districts. And, as someone already mentioned, this isn’t going to work as well for items sold by weight like produce, meat, fish, etc.
You are correct the register systems can be programmed to know the difference between taxable and non-taxable items - also quite a few other variables, such as whether or not an item is WIC eligible. As part of my job, when I assist in investigating irregularities in transactions, I’ve gotten to seen the raw data for transactions - each item has over 40 tags describing such things. Very much yes, these things can be programmed, including prices, but again, the cost of customizing this for each and every store in a large chain is not really cost-effective. Lord knows, we spend some time every day chasing down errors in our current system.
I’m not convinced the additional margin is going to make up for the greater costs of every store in a chain having to have separate price calculations, signs, and so forth.
There are customers in a constant state of pissed-off about such things anyway. As an example, today we had a gentleman who exploded into yelling because just one of our three lottery sales points was not working, going on about how the store sucked because the doors are locked at 6 am (we stopped being open 24/7 back in March and there are BIG BRIGHT SIGNS on every damn door plus other places very plainly stating our new hours), we suck, customer have to wear face coverings now, we suck, everything costs too much, we suck, the lottery machine is busted, we suck… I’m sure the only reason this person continues to patronize our establishment is that every other store everywhere also sucks to the same or greater degree.
But there’s the additional cost of rounding. At just one penny per transaction rounding up (to nearest nickel or nearest dollar) for every transaction that would be about … ::: scribbles on back of envelope ::: $1000/week. Estimated. Except it won’t be just one penny, it will be more than that on average. So thousands of dollars a week for just our store, multiplied by all the stores in the chain… I just don’t see that as sustainable without substantial price increases, which would put us at a disadvantage against our competition unless something forced everyone to do this.simultaneously.
We are, in fact, doing some rounding right now. In truth, we’ve always done a little bit of it to keep lines moving at busy times. We’re doing more - I can see this in the daily results of balancing the tills. Instead of variances of 1-10¢ I’m seeing variations of $1-2 these days. This is offset because a few customers are volunteering to let us keep the change (we also get some of that because some customers don’t want coins and know we use that to offset for the elderly, poor, etc. we cut a break for if they come up slightly short). Our cashiers have limits to their discretion, though, even if these days they’re exercising that discretion a bit more.
Neither does anyone else pay tax for anything that would qualify for SNAP, at least not where I live. Few jurisdictions tax basic foodstuffs. Hot food is often taxed, but it’s also not eligible for SNAP. (I know SNAP - I’ve been on the program and I’m also a cashier who deals with it every day I’m a register-jockey)
I think it’s one solution, and it’s fine as long as it is voluntary. You should not be forced to either join a loyalty club or forego your change. My store is working hard to be able to continue to give exact change to cash-using customers. I’d be fine with loading change onto a loyalty card, but I think as long as we’re using cash people should be able to get proper change if they want it if it is at all possible for that to happen.
One thing my store is doing is encouraging people to pay with coin - we don’t hard sell it, but we mention that we need coins and if they have a pocket full of change they’d like to apply towards their purchase it would help out the store. Some people are very eager to dump a couple dollars worth of coins in our drawers. Some want their change. Because some do have the coin they want rid of we can continue to give change to the others. Actually, yesterday we had so many people pay with their excess change we actually ended the day with slightly more change than we started, even while continuing to make exact change for those customers wanting/needing it.
There are several approaches to the problem of the coin shortage. No one seems sufficient on its own, but by using several it looks like we can get through yet another crazy thing brought to us by 2020.
The problem has two origins:
The US mint cut production by about half as a response to covid, need to social distance workers, arranging shifts so that if one group of workers had to quarantine it wouldn’t shut the mint down completely, and so on. So, only half as many coins were being produced.
Many, many vending machines - CoinStar is used as an example but although a large company it’s far from the only one - stop servicing their machines. So over the past few months those machines filled up with coins that just sat there, unmoving, instead of what normally happened with those coins regularly being turned into a bank and re-entering circulation.
Meanwhile, stores like mine kept ordering coin at the same rate they always did, because they were still dealing with cash and making change. After a few months you get a shortage because coins are not entering (or re-entering) circulation as fast as they are going out. In some ways, it’s a bit remarkable it took six months to get to this point.
So, really, it’s a distribution problem - there actually are coins out there, but they aren’t where they’re needed and while some have started moving back to the banks there is still a bunch sitting parked in various places.
By “customers” they don’t mean just Joe and Jane Citizen with their jar of loose change, they also mean places like CoinStar, whose machines can hold thousands of dollars in coins. Turns out that CoinStar suspending business for a few months can have an impact on the coin supply - who knew? (Not just them of course - it’s every vending machine that wasn’t emptied and the coins deposited).
Two things I wanted to comment on from this post.
1)Those asshole customers that think your store is a shithole and all the employees are shitheads and they’re going to tell everyone what a shitty place with shitty people it is…they keep coming back. I generally say to those people ‘if you think our store is so bad, go shop somewhere else’. Never seems to convince them though.
2)Asking for change. Right now, a few customers brought in some buckets of change that we’re working though as well as buying whatever the bank will sell us every day. But back in the day (before I was in charge of the money) we’d regularly run out of fives or singles in the middle of the day. All we had to do was put out a sign at the register that said ‘we need singles/fives/pennies/etc’ and within a few hours we’d have hundreds of them. Going from not having a single five dollar bill in the building to having a few hundred of them always amazed me. And people would always say the same thing ‘Oh, I have lots of singles/fives/change, I always assumed you didn’t want it’. Nope, we’ll take it. It might annoy the cashiers, but the bank charges more than face value for money.
There was a similar issue, albeit at a much lower level of value, when the one-cent coin was discontinued in Canada. It turned out not to be a problem at all and disproves the arguments here against rounding. The policy adopted by all stores (probably by law, though I’m not certain about that) was very simple: if paying by any electronic means, such as credit or debit, you paid the exact amount as usual; if paying cash, the total (not individual items) was rounded up OR down to the nearest nickel. I never heard either retailers or consumers complain about it. Also, the use of cash is getting pretty rare these days, and practically non-existent in this time of COVID.
Good point, I hadn’t considered that.
Price is what the store charges for their goods (or services). The tax(e)s are what a taxing authority forces the store to collect, which gets remitted to the taxing authorities. No store wants to discourage sales by having prices appear higher because taxes are added in.
Religious organizations don’t usually pay taxes, so the prices again would look higher, although in reality it would be price of the goods+taxes to a non-exempt buyer.
I don’t think it is the stores’ job to do the math for us via the price labels on the shelves.
That made me think of another thing. About 20 years ago I did the online thing to be ordained in the Unitarian Universalist Church. According to the county clerk I was allowed to perform marriages, last rights, etc. Can I use that status to avoid taxes if the purchase is for religious purposes? My congregation uses New York Strip and Glenlivet scotch for communion. Hey, why not?
On a bit more serious point, I’ll never understand taxing food. Seems pretty basic. Especially hot food.
I had a point where I needed SNAP. No stove where I lived. No microwave. A roasted chicken would have been awesome back then.
Anyway, rant over. Sorry
In my neck of the woods, the tax rate (state + county + city) = 9.15%. Suppose a gallon of milk is $2.75, in order to round to $3 (yes, we tax groceries in Kansas). The customer who buys four gallons, however, owes $12.01 ($2.75 * 4 * 1.0915, rounded up). Who pays that penny (which might be more than a penny, of course, over the total of a weekly or biweekly grocery trip)?
The grocery store just outside the city limits only has to collect 7.65% (state + county), which makes the price they collect for the milk $2.79 rather than 2.75; the store in the community improvement district (where the tax is 10.15%) only gets $2.72. In a business with razor-thin margins anyway, what is the effect going to be on the likelihood that all three manage to stay going concerns?
As a consumer, it makes no difference to me where my money is going - I just want to know how much I’m paying. I want the price on the label to be the amount of money I owe, with no surcharges or hidden fees. If someone else (like someone who doesn’t pay taxes) gets a discount, that’s fine by me.
This stupid custom of yours is why I hate shopping in American stores. I constantly feel like I’m being ripped off:
“I’d like this $20 item, please”.
“Sure. So that’s $20, plus local tax, plus state tax, plus federal tax, plus United Federation of Planets tax, plus delivery, plus assembly, plus non-optional warranty, plus tip, plus tithe, plus kickback… that’ll be $435.62. Have a nice day! Are you interested in hearing about our loyalty program?”
If you recall, I did say something about needing everyone to do it at once or it wouldn’t work. If everyone does it, and you have no choice, aside from the inevitable complainer (because there’s always one), there shouldn’t be any problem because it affects everyone equally.
At my store? As long as you have your tax-emempt ID number and can fill out a four line form at the time, sure. You can then deal with any subsequent issues with the IRS.
I can’t recall living anywhere that food is taxed, other than hot, prepared food or food served at a restaurant type setting. Grocery food is not taxed where I live and I can’t recall it being taxed anywhere else I’ve lived. With the exception of Preckwinkle’s “sugar tax” which was repealed fairly quickly.
But yeah, I kind of wish they’d allow those rotisserie chickens on SNAP
OK, so that’s a place they tax groceries… I have learned something today.
To a lot of Americans, where the money is going (specifically, how much is going to the government) IS something they care about, which is one of the reasons retailers want to make very plain how much the store itself is charging and how much the big bad government is adding on top.
That seems to be primarily a middle-of-the-country thing, as most of the states around us also tax groceries: Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi and South Dakota join Kansas in taxing food at the full local sales tax rate, while Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Illinois tax at a reduced rate. Other states taxing groceries include Hawai’i, Utah, and Idaho.
Here in Kansas, taxing groceries is a political issue: a refundable food sales tax credit was mostly eliminated in Sam Brownback’s tax changes in 2012, but Governor Kelly wants to restore it (link may be paywalled) and she had decent legislative support, at least until the current pandemic blew apart the state’s budget.
You may think that’s true, but…
Whom are those feelings of resentment directed at? The store, or the government? Who do you think is doing the ripping-off?