Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 428 posts

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#291

Post by grecy »

51Cards wrote: post #289
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #5

Yes. Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0] The sky didn't fall. There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that's probably not true. For too many politicians that's all they do.) There was resistance when Canada dropped the $1 bill in favour of a Loonie (a $1 coin with the image of a loon on it). People bitched abo…

Penny rounding was supposed to balance out, with 0.01 and 0.02 rounding down to 0.00 and 0.03 and 0.04 rounding up to 0.05. In theory it balances out. I don't think even adjusting your prices to get "in my favour" rounding would make that much of a difference as it's on the final total, not per item.

When Australia dropped their $0.01 coin in 1992 they originally went with "nearest rounding" i.e. 0.01 and 0.02 go down, 0.03 and 0.04 go up.

That only lasted a few years until they changed it to always "round up" - i.e. it always goes up to 0.05.

For what it's worth, dropping the $0.01 coin is great, every time I'm in the US I try to avoid them like the plague.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#292

Post by robbrown451 »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #5

Yes. Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0] The sky didn't fall. There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that's probably not true. For too many politicians that's all they do.) There was resistance when Canada dropped the $1 bill in favour of a Loonie (a $1 coin with the image of a loon on it). People bitched abo…

"Side note: If you drop the penny, for the love of $diety change your sales tax structure so that it's a multiple of 5. 5%, 10%, 15%, etc."

I don't think you thought that through. Unless you are going to require prices be rounded to the nearest dollar, you still need pennies or even fractional pennies to accurately pay the tax. 15% of 75 cents is 11.25 cents, for instance.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#293

Post by grecy »

pottspotts wrote: post #18

About 10 years ago my friends and I made a Web site, removethepenny.com (no longer active) and starting calling around to see who would support us. I recall speaking to someone who was very angry that we cared so little for the metal industry. I think this has been known for a long time but special interests have kept it on life support for obvious reasons.

It's the same reason the US hasn't switched to plastic bills when even countries like Guatemala and Angola have years ago.

There are too many people making too much money on the status quo, and they'll fight tooth and nail to not let it change.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#294

Post by nwallin »

ciceryadam wrote: post #283
bdowling wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are computed at the cashier because tax rates vary from state to state and city to city. If sales taxes were uniform then we would see more advertised prices including tax. One exception is in advertised gasoline prices, which usually include all the taxes, including sales tax and special gasoline taxes.

But why is it possible for gasoline, and not for other items?

Gasoline prices change daily and from one station to the next. So gasoline advertisements never include prices.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#295

Post by InitialLastName »

gojomo wrote: post #221
saagarjha wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would check 18 U.S. Code §331 (fraudulently defacing currency) before doing that.

There would be no fraud in scratching 'ONE CENT' off of pennies that were, by law, worth 5¢. But also, when was the last prosecution for defacing a coin in the United States? What sort of monster would call the police on a fellow person for passing a damaged penny? How would the prosecution's burden of proof be met? (Be a currency hacker, like Satoshi or Woz – https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/woz-prints-and-spend-his-…

How is Woz a currency hacker in that link? He literally just buys sheets from [0] and glues them together.

[0]https://catalog.usmint.gov/paper-currency/uncut-currency/

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#296

Post by harryh »

VLM wrote: post #282
harryh wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court has ruled ideas like this unconstitutional. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-18-mn-38325...

The trivial solution is to tie residency to property ownership or property lease, and payment of property tax. Then use the prop tax to pay for the health care, because almost all health care is local anyway. Have the hospital or clinic or whatever bill the municipal taxing authority wherever you live; for most people the house you live in. Determining residency is not rocket surgery; could steal the entire system fr…

Accounting details like that do not address the Constitutional concerns.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#297

Post by robbrown451 »

Loughla wrote: post #148
nayuki wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since Canada changed but left the taxes the same (14% in Ontario IIRC) there seems to be a lot of rounding-off in favour of companies instead of consumers. $0.01-$0.02 per transaction This assertion is wrong. If the item you buy is $1.00, then after your 14% tax it will be $1.14, which is rounded up to $1.15. If the item is $2.00, then after tax it is $2.28, which also rounds up to $2.30. But if the item is $3.00,…

Regardless of what the practice is in Canada, I have zero faith in literally any US business to round down on anything, at anytime, for any reason at all. It will, I guarantee, be round up on everything.

Businesses already do rounding on sales tax, since percentage tax will often be fractional cents. And they do round down if it is below half a cent.

I don't see why this would be different. Most likely there would be a law that covers it. (I believe there already is regarding sales tax)

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#298

Post by baron816 »

All coins are pretty terrible. When the US was trying to push those dollar coins, there was an argument that the government would make money by selling the new coins (through seigniorage), but that argument was counteracted by the fact that people just wouldn’t use those coins and it would end up sitting in a jar somewhere rather than in a bank earning interest (the velocity of money would be reduced).

The government should put less money into designing and minting/printing new money and instead focus its resources on making the “unbanked” banked. Doing so through the post office has been talked about for years.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#299

Post by InitialLastName »

dhosek wrote: post #211
dhosek wrote: post #206

When someone posted an article about the coin shortage on Facebook recently, I realized that I haven't used cash for a purchase since sometime before the lockdown started. And even before that, my primary use of cash was the collections basket at church—which the lockdown has ended up transforming into a credit card transaction now. Our formerly cash transactions for our cleaning lady have converted into Zelle paymen…

Coin-only laundry machines are probably the biggest drivers of persistent cash usage in most of my acquaintances' lives. I'm guessing that apartment buildings big enough to have in-building laundry rooms but small enough to not be able to justify a cashless payment system may just end up shifting to not charging for laundry.

Until I made the (in hindsight, fortuitous) move into a house with a washing machine, I and many other millions of people in the US used cash weekly at the laundromat. Even their laundry service only took cash.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#300

Post by dlhavema »

jpindar wrote: post #239
torgoguys wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would probably be illegal in most jurisdictions in the US. I don't understand the big fuss over rounding in the discussion of eliminating the penny. Rounding happens. We already round sales tax up or down to the nearest penny--this would just round up or down to the nearest nickel. But while we are on the subject, I think we should eliminate nickels and quarters at the same time as the penny and just round to th…

I was going to say, imagine no more sorting coins since we'd only have one kind - but then I realized I never do that anyway, the Coinstar machine does it for me.

And if you get a gift card instead of cash it's typically free. I did that and walked away with an 80$ Starbucks card. The other time, the machine had an issue connecting and a normal checkout clerk gave me cash directly, again no fee.
Post reply on HN