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Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

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Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#381

Post by kerkeslager »

ianhorn wrote: post #379
kerkeslager wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The US, however, does not. Additionally, the terms of use of credit card companies forbids charging a different price for cash versus card. This means that businesses which aren't large enough to negotiate different terms, have to raise prices across the board to cover the cost of credit card payments--even using cash, you're paying rent to the credit card companies.

Maybe the simplest law to make it less of a shit deal for society is forbid the forbidding of charging different prices for cash vs card. Or something halfway, like forcing card companies to allow price differences up to x% of their charge.

> Maybe the simplest law to make it less of a shit deal for society is forbid the forbidding of charging different prices for cash vs card.

Agreed.

> Or something halfway, like forcing card companies to allow price differences up to x% of their charge.

If I want to use cash, why should I subsidize any portion of the credit card company? I don't see the logic of a half-measure.

I firmly believe that corporations (and other collectives) do not have rights, individuals have rights. This is a prime example where refusal to regulate corporations harms individuals.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#382

Post by esturk »

One thing this Pandemic brought about is the importance of contactless payment. Exchanging cash is unhygenic. Signing credit card receipts is unhygienic. Doing away with pennies should just be a starter.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#383

Post by fiblye »

esturk wrote: post #382

One thing this Pandemic brought about is the importance of contactless payment. Exchanging cash is unhygenic. Signing credit card receipts is unhygienic. Doing away with pennies should just be a starter.

Replacing all money with copper-coated currency like pennies would probably be more hygienic, considering copper is one of the most effective anti-microbial things out there.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#384

Post by syshum »

thekyle wrote: post #309
syshum wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In practice no people do not generally self report that is why there has been several high profile law suits from states wanting online businesses to collect state sales taxes on all sales shipped into the state

Before 2018 or 2019 unless a business had a physical presence in the state it was outsize the reach of that states laws on taxation, as the Federal government has the exclusive domain of regulating interstate transactions under the US Constitution.

However in 2018 or 2019 the Supreme court has ruled that a business shipping into a state provides enough "nexus" for a business to fall under state regulations on sales tax collection. All but one state now require any business shipping a product into the state with a total sales volume of more than $600 for that state must collect sales tax, one state says any sales at all you must collect.

So the "loop hole" of buying from out of state to avoid state sales taxes no longer exist as almost all businesses now need to collect all taxes for all taxing jurisdictions in the US of which there are around 10,000 different tax jurisdictions as many area's have city and/or county level taxes in addition to the state taxes making this is very complex issue

Companies like Amazon and Walmart in the past have advocated for some kind of National Standardization of Sale Taxes but that largely has gone no where as many states make up the majority of their revenue from 2 places, Property Taxes and Sales Taxes where the majority of Income Taxes go to the Federal Government

>>I wonder if states report what percentage of sales tax comes from businesses vs individuals.

Most states do have detailed reports of where sales taxes come from, in my state over 70% of sales taxes come from the sale of Automobiles as an example

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#385

Post by analog31 »

robbrown451 wrote: post #292
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.

I think what you do is that the government publishes a table of official roundoff values, so 15% of 75 cents becomes a thing that you look up in a table.

The last state I lived in where I looked closely at the sales tax structure had a table like this for which penny to round up or down to. It eliminated all formulas and ambiguity.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#386

Post by nik_0_0 »

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,…

Very interesting to check out how different POS systems handle the rounding!

I share GP's assumption, assuming that businesses would re-price based on the final cost. There is a financial incentive to get the transaction to round up, and financial incentives are usually pretty motivating.

(Given the max incentive is 5 cents per transaction, I might guess a focus on one-off transactions like a bag of chips, vs. the complexity of attempting to get the average grocery bill to end in the right #!)

Would be interesting to see if the after-tax prices of potential single items (chips, water, pop) changed with this rule. Anything that was 99 cents, now that HST is 13%, comes to 111.8 cents, rounds to 110 cents. Bumping that to 100 cents even, rounds to 113, rounds up to 115. Profit of 5 cents on '99c/1$' item for 5% difference. Hard margins to give up!

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#387

Post by analog31 »

logicalmonster wrote: post #380

My favored strategy would be be to put Harriet Tubman on the penny as the best path forward. This puts a wanted social change into the culture (Putting a black person on US currency) without removing any president from existing bills (Lincoln still stays on the $5) and erasing history. Additionally, the first black person on US currency should appear on a coin rather than paper money as they’re harder to deface. Give…

I've never understood the "erasing history" thing. Isn't the history the same? If I deface a penny, am I losing a certain quantity of history?

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#388

Post by orangecat »

torgoguys wrote: post #134
bzb3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the item is $4.00, then after tax it is $4.56, which rounds down to $4.55. Everybody who lived the transition to the Euro knows that this is not what will happen. Prices will be always rounded up.

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…

just dollars and dimes

Making change would require an average of 4.5 dimes, with a maximum of 9 that happens 10% of the time. Currently 9 coins are required only for 99 and 94 cents. (That's without half dollars, if you use them then it's only 8). If you have dimes and half dollars, it's an average of 2.5 and a max of 5.

Also, US dimes are small and lightweight

I find them to be too small. I like the simplicity of removing a decimal place, but I'd prefer penny-sized dimes and quarter-sized half dollars.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#389

Post by Aloha »

donarb wrote: post #269
roywiggins wrote: post #231

Earlier 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.

That happened in Washington state when Costco sponsored a privatization initiative to allow liquor to be sold by private stores and abolish the state stores. The private stores started advertising the non-tax price with tiny print saying that tax would be added at the register (when the state sold liquor, the price on the shelf included all liquor taxes). People were pissed thinking that the state had been ripping th…

the bigger reason people voted to change that was to expand hours of access - and selection, which were pretty limited before.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#390

Post by dhosek »

kerkeslager wrote: post #368
ianhorn wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't other countries limit the amount payment providers can charge?

Yes. The US, however, does not. Additionally, the terms of use of credit card companies forbids charging a different price for cash versus card. This means that businesses which aren't large enough to negotiate different terms, have to raise prices across the board to cover the cost of credit card payments--even using cash, you're paying rent to the credit card companies.

If you're paying cash you're not paying anything to the credit card companies. What you are doing is subsidizing my rewards cash back by giving the merchant a slightly higher margin on your purchases so allowing them to charge slightly less on my credit card purchase. Or else you're just giving them extra money and that's the end of it.
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