Pennies are just extra surfaces for coronavirus to ride on.
Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
301–310 of 428 posts
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#302Yes. 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…
The rounding only happens on paper transactions. Since most transactions are made using plastic, where no rounding happens, the impact is terribly small. You do realize you’re being guilty of exactly what you’re decrying in American politics? You’re over analyzing a minuscule impact that would result from a change to the status quo.
I'd rather they round it on all transactions. Gets really weird when the cash register says one thing and you have to pay something else.
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's not merely "practice" in Canada, it's the law. And since most transactions are handled by software these days, it's pretty easy to implement and verify (jobs: secret shoppers). Subtler, businesses can try to game their prices to maximize rounding gains; also illegal (jobs: accounting, data analysis). For small businesses with antiquated tills, one should offer grants for upgrades and training (jobs: installation…
> Subtler, businesses can try to game their prices to maximize rounding gains; also illegal (jobs: accounting, data analysis).
It's actually illegal there to set prices such that they will generally round in the business's favor? Talk about micromanaging…
If they change the tax rates do you have to update your prices so that they round evenly again?
A fairer policy might be "round random" (e.g. 1.23 rounds to 1.20 40% of the time and to 1.25 60% of the time, since .23 is 60% of the way from .20 to .25). That would be harder to game by manipulating the prices. However, you would need to certify that the rounding was actually random; the result wouldn't be obviously correct for any particular transaction, only in aggregate.
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#304The melt value of a copper penny (1982 or prior) is worth more than the face value. However, it's illegal to melt down legal tender currency. AND, fun fact, it's illegal to leave the US with more than $5 worth of pennies, so you can't drive to Canada with a bag of pennies and melt them there. So some people are now starting to hoard copper pennies, waiting for the day when pennies are no longer legal tender, and then…
> it's illegal to leave the US with more than $5 worth of pennies, so you can't drive to Canada with a bag of pennies and melt them there. What law would that violate?
https://twitter.com/crimeaday/status/739973139539632128
"31 USC §5111(d)(2), 31 CFR §82.1(b) & 82.2(a)(2) make it a federal crime to leave the US with more than $25 worth of pennies in your pocket."
Most of that is about penalties but 31 CFR §82.2(a) has the $5 and $25 rules: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/82.2
(I just guessed A Crime A Day had tweeted about this, US law seems to be mostly legacy code...)
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Note that you can also, while you're at it, abolish rounding. You already have this in some sense on gas pumps: the price advertised has taxes included so you are not always playing guess-the-final-total with your money. Just pass a law that requires fair advertising of the actual amount the purchaser will pay, taxes etc. included. If there are special circumstances that might make certain people exempt from a tax --…
Absolutely not, I want to see the practice end on Gas Pumps.
Every business should be requried to adversite, print, and clearly mark the amount of the tansaction is going to taxation
Hiding taxation in the purchase price allows government to increase those tax rights with out facing the same amount of public back lash as they do when the taxation is calculated secretly from the transaction or advertised rate
This is why when come taxes increase their gas takes the hate and vitriol is directed at the "evil gas companies" increasing the rates when in reality it was a increase in gas taxation that cause the per gallon price to increase
One of the primary reasons I oppose a VAT style tax in the US is the vert nature of non-transparent taxation. People need to know exactly how much money the government is taken from them in any given transaction
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's insisted upon by anti-tax advocates, so that Americans always get reminded about exactly how much the government is adding onto the price. Otherwise, the theory goes, we would get too happy about taxes.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there is any law that says businesses have to add sales tax on separately. Since it's the business who actually pays the tax not the consumer they could just take it out of their own profits. However, the reason I think stores do this is: If store A is selling candy bars for $1 (+ $0.05 tax at register) and store B is selling candy bars for $1.05. Most people would buy their candy f…
Business collect and remit taxation on behalf of the customer, so no the business is not "paying" the taxes. It is the consumer that owes them the business is just collecting them for the government. For which the business gets a small fee to do this service for the government.
If the business did not collect taxes then you the customer owe that to the state still and are suppose to self report that and pay the owed taxed annually
This is the same as Tax withholding from a paycheck, you owe the taxes but your employer is collecting and forwarding them to the government on your behalf, the big difference here is the purchases are not tracked by individual tax payer
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#307Early on in the current administration I half-joked that it'd all be worth if if at the end of it we (a) switched to ISO216, (b) bailed on Fahrenheit, and (c) ditched the penny.
Now that would be a legacy any POTUS could be proud about.
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Practical reality" hasn't changed. There never was a way to pay anything with a fraction of a penny, even when cards made it theoretically possible. The final price just gets adjusted to a whole penny amount.
The US has minted half cent coins in the past.
I stand corrected then. I'm pretty sure that was well before I was born, though.
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there is any law that says businesses have to add sales tax on separately. Since it's the business who actually pays the tax not the consumer they could just take it out of their own profits. However, the reason I think stores do this is: If store A is selling candy bars for $1 (+ $0.05 tax at register) and store B is selling candy bars for $1.05. Most people would buy their candy f…
Business collect and remit taxation on behalf of the customer, so no the business is not "paying" the taxes. It is the consumer that owes them the business is just collecting them for the government. For which the business gets a small fee to do this service for the government. If the business did not collect taxes then you the customer owe that to the state still and are suppose to self report that and pay the owed…
> If the business did not collect taxes then you the customer owe that to the state still and are suppose to self report that and pay the owed taxed annually
Interesting. But do people actually do this in practice? I wonder if states report what percentage of sales tax comes from businesses vs individuals.
Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?
#310About 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.
I'm not sure the reasons are so obvious. Surely very little metal is turned into pennies compared to the quantities consumed by industrial processes.
Actually based on advertising around Washington, DC and the lobby groups that run those ads, there is plenty of money in the metal and paper industries to lobby both for and against coinage changes, because I have seen it the last time this issue came up. DC is so packed with lobbying firms that work on portfolios of every issue under the sun that you have to have lived and worked inside the beltway for a while to believe it.