Are you absolutely sure about this? I'm quite certain that sales tax is calculated on the total taxable transaction amount. Unless I misunderstood what you are saying.
An itemized receipt isn't going to reflect tax on every item, you're right. But each item is figured into the whole toward tax. If that item is rounded at the end there is no way of accurately determining what tax is owed on it. A retailer has to show the tax was paid on every item they sale, not on everything as a whole, so it's impractical, if not impossible to tax the rounded amount as a whole when multiple items are purchased. Perhaps some states are different, but in CA where air is taxed, literally, I don't see it working too well. Guy
I was unclear in my previous post, coleguy, and I may be misunderstanding the point you're trying to make. It sounds like you're saying that when I buy (say) ten items, each item gets taxed individually, each item's tax gets rounded up individually, and then those rounded taxes get added up. I'm saying that that isn't true, at least not if you buy everything in one transaction. Let's say I buy twenty candies at five cents each. Sales tax here is 7.75%. Exact sales tax on each candy would be 0.3875 cents. If the retailer rounded up each item's tax individually, I'd be charged twenty cents for tax. If the retailer fairly rounded each item's tax individually, I'd be charged zero cents for tax. I'm not. I'm charged 7.75 cents for tax, rounded up to 8 cents. If that really bugged me, I could instead buy 19 candies, and be charged 7.3625 cents for tax, rounded down to 7 cents. Stick it to the man! But, given the largely random way in which I group my grocery purchases, I'm willing to bet that my rounding gains and losses over the course of a year cancel to within much less than a dollar.
I am glad to see this ignite a debate. Guess I won't mention about them (govt.) talking about reducing the salt in our food.
Similar situation with the dollar bill. But instead of Americans for Common Cents, the lobby is called Save the Greenback.
Not really. Just change the constitution to eliminate corporations having personal rights. IOW, stop the law from recognizing corporations as people. Most of these groups have are backed by corporations.
I'm getting off topic a little bit here... but I'm just curious about the US dollar coins. Does anybody use them? Do you ever get them in your change? Here in Canada we've had the dollar coin (loonie) since 1987 and the two dollar coin (toonie) since 1996, and the 1 and 2 dollar bills were phased out shortly after the coins were introduced. I don't want to start another debate or anything but is there public resistance to using dollar coins?
I usually see at least some dollar coins in tellers' trays, and I think rolls are usually available. Halves are hit-and-miss in trays, and usually rolls aren't available unless somebody's been dumping there.
I can. In fact I just got 2 rolls of dollar coins that turned out to be identical George Washington coins that seemed previously searched. All 3 banks I use will order boxes for me of whatever I want without charge. But I do have substantial accounts with them, so they treat me pretty good.
Thank you JeffB. What Coleguy was presenting simply "sounded" incorrect. It may be correct when reporting inventory as is required by the State of California but certainly not on individual item sales. As far as I know, rounding is done UP for taxes anyway to address partial cents since tax MUST be collected. The purpose behind the rounding is for the "cash transaction" where "cent" coins would no longer be available to offer for payments of 1, 2, 3, or 4 cents. Cash transactions would be rounded, debit/credit card transactions would not. Continuing to produce the cent is simply an unnecessary extravagance enjoyed by those folks who cannot get out of their conspiracy theory boxes much less see outside of them. Continuing to produce the paper bill falls into the exact same category. A pointless, expensive exercise that is no longer needed.
Sales tax is irrelevent to the existence of the cent or any coin. If you buy an item for one cent (yeah right) you don't pay a one twentieth of a cent when there's a 5% sales tax. The government simply eats this loss. A penny would kick in when an item costs 20c if the government were willing to forego the 1/2c lost on a 10c purchase but the government is funny about their willingness to lose money. So the penny kicks in at 10c. The next penny kicks in a 30c. It works out to exactly a 5% tax over the population and sales over the year to about 9 decimal points. When they do the computation at the end of the yar they might have only taxed the citizens of the state 4.9999999998% but they are willing to take that chance. Almost every single individual in the state will be within pennies of having paid exactly 5%. The same thing applies if the penny doesn't exist. Instead of a penny kicking in at 10c a nickel kicks in at 50c. The government still gets almost exactly 5% tax and almost everyone still comes very very close to paying 5%. There are very few sales now days under 50c. When was the last time you were in a grocery or anywhere at all and saw a transacion less than 50c. Sales tax is simply irrelevent. But we are throwing away billions of dollars making pennies and this is a cost to everyone. Even if you grow your own food you still have to breathe the pollution from making these toxic slugs and the truck that haul them hither and yon. And if one turns up in your garden it might still kill your dog or your baby if it's eaten.
Here is a chart of monthly inflation rates dating back to 1914. Can you pinpoint exactly when inflation began going "through the roof?" http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/
Let me put it this way. The lobbyists are simply lying when they say that we need the penny and Americans want it. They lie about a supposed "cost" of eliminating it suggesting it will affect prices and taxes and they lie when they circulate their polls. An honest poll would would specifically styate that eliminating the penny has no effect on prices and taxes and we simply wouldn't have to count or deal with them any longer but they certainly don't want the results of an honest poll. The zinc industry makes millions and they can contribute to the campaign funds of "green" politicians like Al Gore who actually has a zinc mine. (it might be shut down right now though). So the best bet is we'll have a penny at least as long as we're willing to make quarters out of aluminum at about $2 each. The aluminum interests won't care about this use so much since it will be a tiny percentage of their total sales but pennies are a nice chunk of zinc sales. So we hear about how zinc is good for you and an important part of your diet. Meanwhile thousands of tons of zinc cents lie mouldering in garbage dumps and playgrounds because thy are so worthless people throw them away and most won't bother to dispose of them properly or pick them up for any reason. The penny is an albatross we'll wear around our neck until it rots off. Nothing can upset the status quo. Change is to be avoided at all costs. Especially if it involves pennies.
About the time OPEC was formed. Until that time the inflation was pretty even, but after the energy cost rose so high, the standard of living dropped like a rock. Food and housing costs rose dramatically, Interest rates went to 14% on home mortgages. Nixon called for a price freeze. The days of dad working and supporting the family were gone forever after that. Inflation is reflected in many ways. A 3 bedroom house that cost 18k in 1972 which sold for 165 k in 1984 is what I referred to an "inflation". More reality based than economic theory. When people have to work many more hours to obtain the same goods, that's my term meaning of "inflation". gary
I casually mentioned that they might stop making the cent (penny) to my wife who is not interested in collecting. Her reply was "So what ?". lol I believe that once you exit the world we collectors live in, nobody cares much one way or the other. gary
