Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not everyone can see. Australian notes vary in size for this reason.
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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
161–170 of 981 posts
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Setting prices to avoid the need for pennies is probably technically challenging given the combination of requirements to post prices and sales taxes that don't always round the same way. If the effective tax rate is 7.432%, you can price single items so that the price plus tax ends up in a multiple of $0.05, but if you get a purchase with multiple items, you either need to round somewhere or post prices that are lik…
sales tax should be charged per item, not for the total transaction, so that it's possible to list prices that include the sales tax.
It generally is, or at least per category of items. Different items can have different (or none) sales tax rates.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
The linked article raises a few problems that the US could have with that solution: > Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change.
How do they deal with sales tax? Connecticut has a 6.35% sales tax so if I buy something for $1, the total will be $1.0635.
Paying cash, you would pay $1.05.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#164We eliminated pennies in Canada in 2012 and the transition was a non-issue. The vast majority of retailers would round cash transactions to the nearest $0.05, but a few would round down to the nearest $0.05 in favor of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination... Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: No penny, durable polymer banknotes (instead of dirty wrinkly c…
> $1 and $2 coins in wide circulation (instead of worn-out $1 bills).
This has its own pros/cons...
One advantage of $1 bill over coin is the majority of people in US don't need a wallet with zipper to hold coins. Five $1 bills is much less bulky and much lighter than five $1 CAD or five 1€ coins
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll agree on all but one point. The cotton/linen notes feel so much better in the hand than the candy wrapper plastic of Canadian bills. I know it's a dumb reason, but I just hate the feeling.
Plus US dollars just have that smell to them. I wouldn't mind though if we rotated out some of the faces on the bills, e.g. Andrew Jackson
let's wait a few years before rotating faces to avoid debating another blatantly illegal thing Dear Leader would propose (actually he already did but it was out of the news rather quickly)
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d regularly use quarters in vending machines, but not waste time during a retail transaction.
In most other countries, since prices are shown including all taxes you can often have the money ready while waiting in line etc.
Another aspect of the idiotic "we don't know what your tax is going to be" system (they do know it, actually) is that prices will typically end with .99 and the tax will push it over the next dollar and cause a bunch of change to be returned, instead of a single penny.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
American banknotes have numbers on them to easily distinguish the different values!
> The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size. The US and Switzerland are the only two countries that use the same colors for all of their various bills. Needless to say, this sameness of size and color make it impossible for a blind person to locate the correct bills to make a purchase without some sort of assistance, or confirm that he or she has been given the c…
The ten dollar bill has a somewhat different color than the other currency, somewhat yellowish.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#168We eliminated pennies in Canada in 2012 and the transition was a non-issue. The vast majority of retailers would round cash transactions to the nearest $0.05, but a few would round down to the nearest $0.05 in favor of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination... Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: No penny, durable polymer banknotes (instead of dirty wrinkly c…
> the transition was a non-issue
I'm reminded of when Minnesota passed the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act (MCIAA) close to 20 years ago. (Some) restauranteurs - along with the GOP - made pronouncements about how this would destroy the economy. No one would go to out to eat or for a drink again. Doom and gloom.
Last I checked, there are plenty of restaurants open in the state, and things are going fine. In fact, just before the MCIAA went into effect, I had a newborn, and we went out to eat one time with him in tow. We asked for a non-smoking area but were placed immediately next to a family chain smoking. We decided to never go out to eat again until we could do so without risk of second-hand smoke.
My point is that there are frequently these predictions of things being impossible or even just incredibly difficult and not worth the effort, and in the end, it's not a big deal.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#169Too early to say "ever", considering there has been no act of congress on this matter and the penny continues to be legal tender. The decision to stop minting it is a (legally debatable) executive order, and the next president or even the current one can change their mind about it tomorrow.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are several US states where, by law, retailers are not allowed to give preferential treatment to credit card paying customers over cash paying ones. Which means, in those states, retailers will be required to always round transactions to the cash paying customer's benefit, where in other states the retailer is allowed to round to the nearest 5 cents. This is going to cost large retailers millions. Interestingly…
It doesn't cost anyone anything. They can just raise prices 3 cents or whatever.
It gets tricky because sales tax is added on top of the sticker price.