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Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

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Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#311

Post by russdill »

nayuki wrote: post #90
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…

> 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,…

How is this different from rounding sales tax to the nearest penny? Why should it be different?

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#313

Post by gbear605 »

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?

At a gas station, they have between one and four prices (diesel, regular, premium, and premium plus, or whatever your station calls it). So it’s easy for them to adjust those four numbers. At a grocery store selling thousands or tens of thousands of items, it’s a huge task to set the price tag for each item. So instead (or so I’ve heard), prices tags are produced by the grocery store’s corporate office. This would be much more difficult to do if the price had to vary from town to town. Suppose this grocery store chain has a hundred stores. Instead of making ten thousand tags 100 times, you have to make 10 million tags entirely uniquely. This is even more difficult for things like clothes where the price is on a tag physically attached to the garment. Imagine if the sales tax went down in that town; every single article of clothing would need to be relabeled.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#314

Post by beervirus »

dutch3000 wrote: post #312

no. tired of these lame discussions about something as trivial as a penny. nobody should waste time on contemplating such a question.

Think of all the time that everyone would save going forward not having to deal with pennies. It's worth spending some time up front for a benefit like that.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#315

Post by a2h »

gruez wrote: post #85
a2h wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to how HFT firms make a profit. Except it's generally less than a penny but it's per share per transaction (trade). We can thank the Sub-Penny Pricing Rule of Regulation NMS for this feature. An order for 1000 shares of XYZ stock that is front-run for half a penny per share is $50 dollars profit. Rinse and repeat.

>We can thank the Sub-Penny Pricing Rule of Regulation NMS for this feature Are you sure? I did a quick search and came up with this >One of the rules in Regulation NMS is a new Sub-Penny Rule: “which establishes a uniform quoting increment of no less than one penny for quotations in NMS stocks equal to or greater than $1.00 per share to promote greater price transparency and consistency. . . . In particular, Rule 61…

Your criticism of my attributing the cause of the 'feature' to Reg NMS is fair. Although it is worth looking at the entirety of Rule 612, especially paragraph (c)[0].

You are correct that brokers are required to execute customer trades at the best available price aka the NBBO. The issue here is that the NBBO is relatively slow as compared to data feeds offered by various exchanges and many brokers use the NBBO simply to satisfy Reg NMS Rule 603(c)[1].

If price data was able to travel instantaneously then the NBBO might represent the true best price(s). But the laws of physics say it isn't so and orders can be executed at a less-than-best price yet still at or better than the NBBO.[2]

Fortunately, more are aware of this these days including the SEC which released a proposed order calling for exchanges to submit revised NMS Plans for consolidated data earlier this year.[3]

A great summary of how money is made with all of this I highly recommend giving this a read: http://www.nanex.net/aqck2/What-Every-Retail-Investor-Needs-...

[0]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/242.612 [1]: https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-729/4729-4560068-176205.pdf [2]: https://iextrading.com/docs/The%20Evolution%20of%20the%20Cru... [3]: https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nms/2020/34-87906.pdf

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#316

Post by Entalpi »

roywiggins wrote: post #286
thekyle wrote: post #274

Earlier 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…

Sometimes stores will structure sales that way ("we pay the sales tax" sales), so I expect you're right. The situation where it comes up is the idea of an American VAT. Because it applies the tax before the store even sees the good, the tax ends up baked into the price. And people like Grover Norquist have argued against a VAT specifically because of that: "The VAT is embedded inside the price of a good (as opposed t…

I love how the argument being played is that VAT is used to fed a big government. Like the US is huge, it requires a large government..

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#317

Post by Entalpi »

syshum wrote: post #305
crdrost wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In every single transaction? Why if there were some form you sent in and recieved every year that contain exactly the financial transation for that year between you and the state.. hmm.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#318

Post by dutch3000 »

beervirus wrote: post #314
dutch3000 wrote: post #312

no. tired of these lame discussions about something as trivial as a penny. nobody should waste time on contemplating such a question.

Think of all the time that everyone would save going forward not having to deal with pennies. It's worth spending some time up front for a benefit like that.

i reject a future driven solely by efficiency. therefore, i support the penny.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#319

Post by kerkeslager »

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…

There are whole subeconomies that operate primarily in cash. If you think that cash is going to disappear, you're living in an echo chamber.

And more to the point, forcing every American to pay 1-3% rent on every transaction is not progress.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#320

Post by streb-lo »

stilley2 wrote: post #35
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…

> This is a key difference between US policy & Canadian policy that I have informally noticed while growing up on the border (with family ties on both sides). My wife's Canadian and I'm American, and we've discussed this point too. My theory is that Canada's parliamentary system generally puts one party in charge of the executive and legislative, so it's easier for that party to get things done. Of course there are t…

> Of course there are times when a party in the US controls both branches and we still struggle to get things done.

It's the party discipline. In Canada political parties control the fundraising apparatus and you can't be bankrolled by a handful of wealthy donors. Barring unusual circumstance, if you want to be re-elected you are beholden to a party and thus the whips generally have a strong ability to bring votes to the table.

In the states its a lot easier for a Republican or Democrat to tell their party to go fly a kite if they don't see voting for a bill as opportune, in part because of less reliance on the party.

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