When will the penny be retired?

IMO, once the "Rounding" begins, folks that have cents they want to use will NOT be able to use them since...........the cash register will come up with the total due.

What this means is if the final tally comes out to be $12.33 cents, the register will round up to $12.35 and that's what the customer will have to pay. If not, then the accounting department will have fits because the accounting totals will be 2 cents short. Multiply that by thousands of customers (such as grocery stores and 7/11's) and you've got quite a shortage "from an accounting standpoint".

Then again, if the final tally comes out to be $12.32, the register will round down to $12.30 and exactly WHO is going to voluntarily pay more than what they need to?

Once the rounding begins, the penny may not be accepted primarily due to accounting situations. However, this is not to say that on rare occasions where the tally comes out to exactly $12.35 that a customer could not pay with a $10, two $1's, a quarter, a nickel and 5 1 cent coins.

On the plus side, it's a fairly simply procedure.
On the negative side.........there are idiots out there that will get violently upset over the loss of 2 cents even though that very same person will not bother to pick up a cent from the sidewalk.

Go Figure.........

 

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I agree with everything you have said EXCEPT rounding down. I'm sure that the machines and merchants who operate them will round UP in every case. They wouldn't dare lose two cents when they could gain three.

$12.30 - Still $12.30
$12 31 - now $12.35 +$.04
$12.32 - now $12.35 +$.03
$12.33 - now $12.35 +$.02
$12.34 - now $12.35 +$.01
$12.35 - now $12.35
$12.36 - now $12.40 +$.04

There is absolutely no way the merchant will take the loss for any rounding transaction.

If you don't believe me, just tell me what you paid the last time you bought 1 can of an item marked 3/$1. It wasn't thirty-three cents, I will guarantee you.

 

Such laws didn't stop melting of silver coins in the 60's and won't stop melting of any other metal coins if it becomes profitable. "The Big Silver Melt" by Merton describes what happened. Today, you can find vids on youtube showing how to melt silver coins into ingots. I haven't heard of these folks going to jail. Melting of zinc cents would be more widespread than melting of silver ever was because of its much lower melting point. Fire-up the barbie and make some zinc ingots!

Cal

 

No idea how it would be done in the US, and that is probably a moot point anyway but in the countries where such rounding rules apply, they are also quite specific about how cash totals are rounded. In a few countries rounding down is mandatory, but usually amounts are rounded up or down, whatever is closer.

Christian

 

If the cent is discontinued, people will horde the nickels, after all, who wants an empty fruit jar?

 

Christian, is there anything that stops people in those countries that round up or down from using 5 cents to make the new rounded total?

 

They can still use then but they will still have to pay what the cash register says. If it says $12.35 they can pay with 35 one cent pieces if the want to. The cashier may give them dirty looks but they can do it. But since they cashier will never have to pay OUT one cent pieces (due to the rounding), any that do come in will be sent back to the bank and eventually the Fed

Since the registers are already programmed to round to the NEAREST 5 cents, the only way the merchant is going to be able to always round up is to either forgo the use of a cash register, or not turn on the rounding program and then look the customer right in the eye and ask for more money than the cash register says they owe. I don't think either of those is a viable option.

But once the cent is discontinued and out of circulation there is no reason to keep the law forbidding its melting. (Once silver coins were out of circulation the laws against melting them down were repealed) The only reason those laws are in place now is because if people began melting down the cents and five cents there would be a shortage that the government would have to scramble to replace at a loss for every coin made. Once they are already out of circulation melting them down doesn't cause a shortage.