<story><title>Is It Time to Kill the Penny?</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/14/890435359/is-it-time-to-kill-the-penny</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>UI_at_80x24</author><text>Yes.&lt;p&gt;Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0]
The sky didn&amp;#x27;t fall.
There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that&amp;#x27;s probably not true.  For too many politicians that&amp;#x27;s all they do.)&lt;p&gt;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 about having too much change in there pocket, pockets became too heavy, etc.  I do however see more coins in tip &amp;amp; donation jars now then I ever saw paper money.&lt;p&gt;This is a key difference between US policy &amp;amp; Canadian policy that I have informally noticed while growing up on the border (with family ties on both sides).&lt;p&gt;Canadian government:  We think it&amp;#x27;s a good idea, so we&amp;#x27;re going to do it.&lt;p&gt;US Government: Lets have more opinion polls, and countless politicians swearing against any decent public reform or change to the status quo.  Watch the media whip the public up into a frenzy.  I guaranty that this will create a more frantic response and airtime then the BLM &amp;amp; Police Reform protests did.&lt;p&gt;Side note: If you drop the penny, for the love of $diety change your sales tax structure so that it&amp;#x27;s a multiple of 5.   5%, 10%, 15%, etc...  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 * millions of transactions per day has got to make some accountants happy.&lt;p&gt;[0]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbc.ca&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;canada&amp;#x2F;canada-s-penny-withdrawal-all-you-need-to-know-1.1174547&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbc.ca&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;canada&amp;#x2F;canada-s-penny-withdrawal-all...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nayuki</author><text>&amp;gt;  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&lt;p&gt;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, then after tax it is $3.42, which rounds down to $3.40. If the item is $4.00, then after tax it is $4.56, which rounds down to $4.55.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the rounding to nearest nickel is done per transaction, not per item. So if you go to a supermarket and pick up 3 items costing exactly $1.00, then the total you owe is $3.42 (which becomes $3.40 in cash), and it is that amount that is subjected to rounding, not the individual items (which are $1.13 and would round to $1.15).&lt;p&gt;I live in Toronto and have analyzed my retail receipts. (I&amp;#x27;m aware the HST is currently 13% but that&amp;#x27;s not relevant to this argument.) The rule about rounding to the nearest nickel is sensible enough, but I&amp;#x27;ve witnessed various weird behaviors. For example, each vendor has a different kind of wording to show how they rounded your cash transaction. Some use a negative sign to show that the penny rounding deducted money from your total owed, while some use a negative sign to show that the penny rounding increased your total owed (as if you paid negative money). Also, a few vendors always round down to the nearest 5 cents (to appear nice to the customer), which causes a surprise when I&amp;#x27;m trying to prepare the correct amount of change. Finally, some vendors don&amp;#x27;t display cash rounding on their receipts, so for them it is an oral culture that isn&amp;#x27;t formally written down.</text></comment>
<story><title>Is It Time to Kill the Penny?</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/14/890435359/is-it-time-to-kill-the-penny</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>UI_at_80x24</author><text>Yes.&lt;p&gt;Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0]
The sky didn&amp;#x27;t fall.
There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that&amp;#x27;s probably not true.  For too many politicians that&amp;#x27;s all they do.)&lt;p&gt;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 about having too much change in there pocket, pockets became too heavy, etc.  I do however see more coins in tip &amp;amp; donation jars now then I ever saw paper money.&lt;p&gt;This is a key difference between US policy &amp;amp; Canadian policy that I have informally noticed while growing up on the border (with family ties on both sides).&lt;p&gt;Canadian government:  We think it&amp;#x27;s a good idea, so we&amp;#x27;re going to do it.&lt;p&gt;US Government: Lets have more opinion polls, and countless politicians swearing against any decent public reform or change to the status quo.  Watch the media whip the public up into a frenzy.  I guaranty that this will create a more frantic response and airtime then the BLM &amp;amp; Police Reform protests did.&lt;p&gt;Side note: If you drop the penny, for the love of $diety change your sales tax structure so that it&amp;#x27;s a multiple of 5.   5%, 10%, 15%, etc...  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 * millions of transactions per day has got to make some accountants happy.&lt;p&gt;[0]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbc.ca&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;canada&amp;#x2F;canada-s-penny-withdrawal-all-you-need-to-know-1.1174547&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbc.ca&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;canada&amp;#x2F;canada-s-penny-withdrawal-all...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>philistine</author><text>The rounding only happens on paper transactions. Since most transactions are made using plastic, where no rounding happens, the impact is terribly small.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></comment>