Reminds me of an anecdote about a woman who balanced her checkbook by rounding all amounts to the nearest dollar. Her father eventually heard about this, freaked out, and re-tallied everything — and ended up within a dollar of her previously-computed balance.
Canada ditches the penny
41–50 of 120 posts
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a fellow Australian the pennies aren't what I found most bizarre about US and Canadian currency, I more often found myself getting tripped up by the fact that listed prices in US and Canadian stores never include sales tax.
At least in the US, sales tax is assessed locally, so it can vary even within a particular region. Dealing with fixed prices and additional sales tax is the only reasonable way to run a business that crosses multiple localities.
What about gas prices? The displayed price is what you actually pay, it always includes all the taxes.
I guess the businesses are not required to do this for other products and naturally they choose to display the lower price, i.e. the one excluding taxes.
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#43i wonder if Canada has that bit, where the prices you see in the store are the final prices(i..e with tax already calculated in)
No, the prices are before tax. I think there is even a law against showing prices with tax for whatever reason.
There's no law against it (some places do this, most notably street carts, etc.), but if you were a cafe owner would you really want to put 15% higher prices on your menus? People would look at the numbers and leave, rather than noticing the 'taxes included' and having to do math.
Until it's a legislated requirement (and boy do I wish it were), we're probably not going to see it very often other than with fungible cash-only vendors.
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#44A brilliant decision. Now if we could only get rid of our 1 euro cent here. According to some inflation figures I quickly found on the internet, a (US dollar) penny had a hundred years ago 23 times as much buying power as a penny nowadays. That means the smallest denomination was then was worth almost as much as a quarter is now! People could get by without smaller coins then and they should be able to work perfectly…
Even better: the US used to have a half-cent but they abolished it in 1857 due to its lack of value. With inflation, it's worth more than today's dime.
Some would argue that your example is almost exactly as good as the other one given.
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
from reddit: SR&ED is [reorganized.] Whew, so it's not completely axed. If anything Canada needs significantly more investment and tax programs like this. Brain drain has always been a problem for Canada because of the lack of investment from the government and the lack of tech-oriented VC.
I was hoping for SR&ED to be completely axed. It's a huge monstrosity of paperwork, to the point that small businesses pay 30% of their tax credits to consultants who fill out the forms for them and large businesses hire teams of people for the sole purpose of tracking and classifying SR&ED expenses so that the tax credits can be claimed. I suspect that Tarsnap is eligible for some SR&ED credits, but it's simply not…
Talk to Ernst & Young. They will help startups file for SR&ED for a flat fee of $1-3k. Takes a few hours to draft the document with their help. It is not as hard as it sounds.
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it gave an advantage to market makers and large institutional traders. I can look for some of the research if you are interested... This is from the SEC at the time: http://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/ts092000.htm It should be a good starting point if you are interested. There was also a NYT article that was very succinct but I can not find the citation at the moment. EDIT: I'm at a loss for why this was downv…
I still don't understand how that is a win for consumers . If anything, my limited experience with the stock market tells me that market makers and HFT have been stealing cents on most transactions made by individuals since we've made the switch.
Before the change to decimalization the market makers were pocketing $1/8 and for a brief time $1/16.
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moreover one of the best things for consumers was when the stock market changed quotes from fractions to cents. Why?
Because it gave an advantage to market makers and large institutional traders. I can look for some of the research if you are interested... This is from the SEC at the time: http://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/ts092000.htm It should be a good starting point if you are interested. There was also a NYT article that was very succinct but I can not find the citation at the moment. EDIT: I'm at a loss for why this was downv…
This is correct if we replace consumers with retail traders.
Pricing in eighths guarantees a minimum bid-ask spread, what the market-makers make before adjustments, of an eighth. With pricing in cents the minimum spread is a penny spread.
Canada isn't changing pricing to twentieths - it's still priced to the cent, except cash transactions will be rounded to the twentieth unless the customer has pennies in which case they can pay in exact change. Thus I do not believe the comparison is apt.
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#48[deleted]
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#49Ridiculously simple solution: Drop the hundredths place entirely. Kill pennies, nickels, quarters, bring back $.5 pieces.
A tenth of a dollar is enough precision for any realistic transaction in the United States.
Re: Canada ditches the penny
#50Ridiculously simple solution: Drop the hundredths place entirely. Kill pennies, nickels, quarters, bring back $.5 pieces. A tenth of a dollar is enough precision for any realistic transaction in the United States.
Simple in concept, difficult in execution. How would you recommend the transition between the two systems be handled?