Abolishing the Cent: new developments

Just ask the cashier that’s asks you to round up if they will round down for you.

 

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My question has always been on the taxation end. State and local in particular. In PA, it's 6% so by their reasoning of rounding up I'd be paying ten percent. Twenty if I buy something in the county to the north. Good grief, didn't we fight a war over this at some point?

 

Do... do you always spend your money a single dollar at a time?

 

Think a little harder. The total sale will be rounded, not the tax rate.

 

And even then, only when paying cash. Credit/debit/check transactions can still be made out in cents. The overall effect of this will be minimal; I find it weird people are even still making this argument that it will have some major detrimental effect. It's been done in many other countries, and it's had negligible effect on actual commerce in those places. Especially since the use of cash is declining world-wide.

 

National Association of Convenience Stores

It's always been suspect accounting when the mint wants to complain about collector coins; more of the overhead seems to land on that side of the ledger. When the narrative is "eliminate the cent", more lands there...

The mint does have large fixed costs (multi-million-dollar presses, security) and difficult-to-apportion costs (e.g. electricity). Additionally, a significant portion of the information (including the costs of planchets) is proprietary and can't be disclosed.