The "new" penny is just awful

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by myownprivy, Jul 12, 2019.

  1. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    No, it doesn't!

    Your purchase is totaled, and tax is calculated on the total.

    If I buy a $1.00 item, and tax is 6%, the total would be rounded DOWN to $1.05. But if I buy ten of them, my total will be $10.60, and I'd get exact change. (Or I could be incredibly anal-retentive about it, make ten trips through the checkout, and Stick It To The Man for a total of ten rounded-in-my-favor cents.)

    7% seems "rounder" than 6.35%, but neither one is a round number -- they're actually 0.07 and 0.0635. If you want round tax numbers, you're arguing for a rate of 0%, or 100%, or 200%, and so on.
     
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  3. Clawcoins

    Clawcoins Damaging Coins Daily

    what? you must have misunderstood / I misblurbed my brain thinkings ....

    anywhooo ... when I buy something worth $1.00 in Michigan at 6% sales tax it's $1.06. Thus I either pay exact change of $1 + a nickel + a penny (or 6 pennies), or over pay with $1.10 (or more) and get 4 cents back.

    Either way, cents are still needed for commerce.

    With Sales/Muni Tax do you think they'd just round to make it easier or fix their percentages. Seems a bit crazy and developed for large purchases (no taxes on individual items under $100 would be a good solution for that, but I'm sure they'd tax the under $100 at a higher rate).
     
  4. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    And if you buy an item priced at 99 cents?

    In Michigan, at 6% sales tax, it's $1.0494. Are hundredths of a cent needed for commerce?

    But ignore "non-round" tax rates. Go to a state that doesn't charge sales tax on food, and buy a bunch of bananas at 49 cents a pound. The bunch weighs 2.38 pounds (rounded, because scales round their readings). You owe $1.1622. What do you do, if the government has decided not to mint hundredth-cents any more?

    My point: we already round totals ALL THE TIME. Everyone is perfectly fine with rounding to the nearest cent; we've been doing it for over 150 years.

    In that time, the dollar has lost over 90% of its value. The cents that we're fretting over are worthless, in any meaningful sense. They're less than the "mill" (one-tenth of a cent) of the late 19th century.

    Commerce in the 19th century didn't need the mill as anything other than an abstract concept. Today, we don't need the cent as anything other than an abstract concept.

    Round to the nearest nickel, or dime, or even quarter. Over all your transactions, you'll come out even, because probability dictates that rounding will go in your favor about as often as it goes against you. And when you don't have to wait for a cashier to count cents, you'll save TIME -- a commodity more precious than gold, because you can't purchase extra at any price.
     
    Maxfli likes this.
  5. Ana Silverbell

    Ana Silverbell Well-Known Member

    Not sure that is true but I attended public school so I could be wrong but you round up at .005, so 60% of the time you round up?
     
  6. desertgem

    desertgem Senior Errer Collecktor

    Jeff, maybe they will bring back the old plastic and white metal tax tokens for 2mils, 1/5 of a cent if I remember correctly :) Jim
     
  7. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Nope, 50% of the time.

    0.0 -> 0
    0.1 -> 0
    0.2 -> 0
    0.3 -> 0
    0.4 -> 0
    0.5 -> 1
    0.6 -> 1
    0.7 -> 1
    0.8 -> 1
    0.9 -> 1
     
  8. CoinCorgi

    CoinCorgi Tell your dog I said hi!

    Public school for the win! lol We're doomed.
     
  9. Ana Silverbell

    Ana Silverbell Well-Known Member

    I see what you are saying but you miss my point. If Johnny has 10 apples ...

    Actually,

    0.0 - this one doesn't count. The sales tax on a $1.00 sale is $0.06. Not paying more or less. It is when we round that the edge goes to the government.

    0.1 -> 0
    0.2 -> 0
    0.3 -> 0
    0.4 -> 0 Rounding down through 0.4
    0.5 -> 1 Rounding up the next 5.
    0.6 -> 1
    0.7 -> 1
    0.8 -> 1
    0.9 -> 1

    So...
     
  10. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    You're assuming that every total is an exact tenth, but it's not. Remember, it's not just tax rates that impose non-round numbers; it's weight-based pricing, time-based pricing, and even "3 for a dollar" type pricing.

    If prices are calculated to a tenth of a cent and then rounded, they go up 50% of the time, and down 49% of the time. If they're calculated to a hundredth of a cent, they go up 50.0 percent of the time, and down 49.9% of the time, and so on.

    Of course, it's possible that a merchant is doing everything with exact-cent prices, and that there's a systemic rounding error in the government's (or the merchant's) favor. On average, this error will be one cent per transaction.

    How much of your life are you willing to waste counting pennies in order to avoid that loathsome one-cent burden?
     
  11. Clawcoins

    Clawcoins Damaging Coins Daily

    Yes, and the government rips us off of our pennies (any one here collect pennies from their change ?) all the time. Maybe we should first abolish the hobby of penny collecting. Then that would free up some of the need of pennies.

    Have the gov't change their ways so that all their calculations will be even or down, instead of ripping off the public.

    I could save time by a multitude of ways; waiting for a cashier to count change really isn't one of them.
     
  12. Maxfli

    Maxfli Well-Known Member

    The problem in this example is that it's stated in terms of decile, not percentile.

    Apply the same rule as when you round on your tax return:

    .50 or less: round down
    .51 or more: round up
     
  13. Clawcoins

    Clawcoins Damaging Coins Daily

    Are you saying this with a straight face on a coin board where a multitude of posts are about pennies with people going out of their way to collect pennies ? ;)
     
    -jeffB likes this.
  14. Maxfli

    Maxfli Well-Known Member

    Ceasing production of Lincoln cents would make them way more collectible, right? It's a win-win.
     
  15. Clawcoins

    Clawcoins Damaging Coins Daily

    We'd just have to import our pennies from Canada, or the Bahamas.
    ... say that 5 times with a straight face :)


    I read on one of those 1981 articles that the Mint guesstimated that 3 of 5 pennies went right into a coin jar ...
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2019
  16. Maxfli

    Maxfli Well-Known Member

    If that's true, then how much more market research do they need to determine that the cent is an unneeded coin and should be retired?
     
  17. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    But won't someone think of the poor zinc manufacturers?

    Clearly, someone did. And they have the winning lobbyists.

    Or, to put it another way: you're expecting common-sense decision-making from an entrenched bureaucracy?
     
  18. Maxfli

    Maxfli Well-Known Member

    Ye gads, no! My question was more of the rhetorical variety. :D
     
  19. Clawcoins

    Clawcoins Damaging Coins Daily

    common sense,
    or common cents ?

    something smells fishy in the "entrenched bureaucracy", which would make that common scents. :)
     
  20. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Yep, that scent is awfully common around those parts...
     
  21. Cheech9712

    Cheech9712 Every thing is a guess

    Never did like the shield. The mint has dropped every opportunity to create a new reverse cent. Shound send the whole mint staff to a kindergarten classroom for new ideas
     
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