Canada To Stop Producing Pennies In 2013

First time accepted submitter master_kaos writes "Canada is going to stop producing pennies in February 2013 to help save the tax payers $11 million per year. Cash transactions will be rounded to the nearest nickel. Cheque/Credit Card transactions are not affected."

Comments

Excellent;

[Samantha Wright]

Now we can just keep around stacks of cheques for one to four cents, and deliver to shopkeepers as needed.

...but honestly, I doubt the penny will vanish for another couple of years. Coin jars, coin jars everywhere.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

You can take the pennies to the bank and deposit them, but retailers won't accept them.

Re:Excellent;

[skade88]

The metal used to make a penny has to be worth more than the penny's currency value.

Re:Excellent;

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Did you miss the part where it said purchases would be rounded to the nearest nickle?
As a Canadian I can tell you that the pennies will disappear quickly, because the banks have been told to collect them.
The place I get my morning breakfast has already started rounding to the nearest nickle. My breakfast comes to $3.66 total, and I am always asked for $3.65

I for one, say "About bloody time!"

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

We made away with them in about a year in Finland.
Stores kept accepting them for 1 year, then only banks accepted them.
It was the same when we transitioned from the Finnish mark to euro.
I am unsure if even banks accept 1 and 2 cent coins these days.

Re:Excellent;

[minogully]

Yes, you're right, it costs 1.6 cents per penny.

citation: metro news

Re:Excellent;

[icebike]

Yes, you're right, it costs 1.6 cents per penny.

citation: metro news

No, that is not right. Your own source specifies that 1.6 cents is the MANUFACTURING cost, not the price of the metal in the penny.

If the metal in the penny was worth more than the penny people would be melting them down, as they did with gold coins. Clearly that is not happening.

Re:Excellent;

[BennyB2k4]

This is especially true for pre-1996 pennies, which are 98% copper. roughly 3-4 cents per penny depending on the current copper price.

Re:Excellent;

[SerpentMage]

What's a penny? What's a nickel? ;)

Here in Switzerland we have done away with them since a very very very long time ago. BTW a Swiss Franc is slightly worth more than a USD or CAD. I personally prefer it that way. Actually I prefer the debit transaction system we have. I can have a 100 CHF in my pockets and it will last me for about 1 to 2 months.

The one dollar bill of the US just confounds me.

Re:Excellent;

[icebike]

Did you miss the part where it said purchases would be rounded to the nearest nickle?
My breakfast comes to $3.66 total, and I am always asked for $3.65

I suggest your experience will prove to be atypical.

In most cases rounding will go UP by a penny or four, because of the tendency to price things at xxx.99.
Over the course of the a typical year, I suspect this will cost the Canadian tax payers much more than the 11 million that dropping the penny was supposed to save, because retailers will round ALL prices up to the next nickle, whether payment is by cash, credit, or check.

Yes, I know the definition of rounding, but mark my words, nobody will be rounding down.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss the part where it said only CASH transactions would be rounded? Seems to me that cash transactions themselves are becoming increasingly rare and this is a pretty big non-issue in a plastic money world.

Re:Excellent;

[Garridan]

Damn straight! As an American expat in Canada, I truly truly hate returning to the states and getting a wallet full of ones. Having $1 and $2 coins makes money so much easier to deal with. I say let's go the next step now: throw out the nickel and quarter, and give us a $.50 piece.

Re:Excellent;

[AndyKron]

I like your tagline!

Re:Excellent;

[Samantha Wright]

Silly! Of course not. That doesn't mean I won't do it anyway.

Re:Excellent;

[RajivSLK]

The reason the penny costs so much to keep in circulation is not solely the cost of minting. If a penny costs $0.02 to mint but is used in 10,000 transaction in it's life time that would be ok.

The problem with the penny is that they don't get spent. The mint needs to keep producing new ones for retailers to give out and people go home and throw them in a coffee can.

Oddly, this is the exact argument in favour of $1, $2, and $5 coins. People don't spend coins as easily, they tend fall between couch cushions or collect in jars. Until those jars are emptied, and the couch cleaned those coins are basically a kind of interest free loan the government.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one, say "About bloody time!"

The savings is obscene!! What are you going to do with your share of the $11M (uh... $0.32)?

Re:Excellent;

[theJML]

This is an interesting part. I've noticed recently there have been more and more places where the Cash price differs from the Credit price. It used to be this way growing up, and they're going back to it because of all the problems and costs associated with Credit. And yes, it's Cheaper to pay with Cash. (a few gas stations here charge 10 cents or more per gallon for credit over cash transactions.)

Re:Excellent;

[icebike]

Did you miss the part where it said only CASH transactions would be rounded? Seems to me that cash transactions themselves are becoming increasingly rare and this is a pretty big non-issue in a plastic money world.

Have you ever run a business? Having a books balancing issue because a even few transactions are in cash will encourage all prices to the nearest nickle. Its just too much of a hassle to have every transaction in the cash register off by a couple cents. Cash businesses would go nuts trying to get their books to balance.

Re:Excellent;

[minogully]

Sorry, totally my fault, I was reading too quickly and I didn't read the first part of your sentence - "The metal used to make"

Thanks for the correction, I don't want to mislead anyone.

Re:Excellent;

[ZzzzSleep]

Oddly enough, this didn't happen in Australia when we got rid of our 1 and 2 cent coins back in 1991.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting the tax, which is calculated on top of the listed .99 price. In Ontario at least, HST is 13%, so that's .99 x 1.13 = 1.12, rounded to 1.10.

So you're actually saving 2c in that case.

Re:Excellent;

[Chris Mattern]

The reason the penny costs so much to keep in circulation is not solely the cost of minting. If a penny costs $0.02 to mint but is used in 10,000 transaction in it's life time that would be ok.

No, it's a problem. Negative seigniorage is a bad thing; a government expects to make money when it's making money.

Re:Excellent;

[Megane]

I was going to suggest Canadian Tire Money, but they never made any smaller than 3 and 5 cents.

Re:Excellent;

[YrWrstNtmr]

In most cases rounding will go UP by a penny or four, because of the tendency to price things at xxx.99.

If and only if I buy only one item. I buy 3, all ending in 9, and the total transaction ends in 7. Therefore rounding down to the nearest nickel. Whee!! I screwed xCorp out of 2 cents!

Re:Excellent;

[icebike]

Depends on who is saving does it not?

If the idea was to save the government 11 million by dropping the penny, and government suffers from lower tax revenue as a result,
then the savings are imaginary at best.
They are bound to come back and raise the taxes to make up the difference.

Re:Excellent;

[VGPowerlord]

What's a penny? What's a nickel? ;)

Here in Switzerland we have done away with them since a very very very long time ago.

I guess Wikipedia is lying to me then, as it implies that the 1 rappen coin was in production until 2006 and the 5 rappen coin is still in production ("nickel" is the nickname of the USD and CAD 5 cent pieces).

The one dollar bill of the US just confounds me.

Good thing Canada doesn't produce dollar bills any more and instead uses the $1 loonie coin and $2 toonie coin.

The US has had a $1 coin in regular circulation since 1999 (and special printings in 1979-1981 before that). However, the government hasn't been able to convince people to use them instead of dollar bills.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who studied the blasted VISA Merchant Regulations as I was learning a bit about e-commerce, I would direct folks to page 414 of the standard international operating procedures:

Core Principle 6.3
No Surcharging Unless Required by Law
Charging for the Advertised Price

Visa merchants agree to accept Visa cards for payment of goods or services without charging any
amount over the advertised or normal price as a condition of Visa card acceptance, unless local law
requires that merchants be permitted to engage in such practice.

Re:Excellent;

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

This is an example of US government stupidity. All they have to do is stop making $1 bills. The rest will take care of itself.
In Canada the banks were told to collect $1 bills and turn them over to the mint. It took about a year for the $1 bill to disappear.

Re:Excellent;

[Chris Mattern]

If the metal in the penny was worth more than the penny people would be melting them down, as they did with gold coins. Clearly that is not happening.

Yes, it did happen. Then they made it illegal. There's not enough money in it for that; if you're going to do something illegal to make money, you're going to want something that makes more money than this.

Re:Excellent;

[DarthBart]

No, because the DERP squad is pumping out many megabytes of emails and Facebook postings that say "FWD: FWD: FWD: RE: RE: FWD: FWD Don't accept the dollar coins because they don't have 'In God we Trust'' on them!!!!!!"

Re:Excellent;

[CohibaVancouver]

Here in Switzerland we have done away with them since a very very very long time ago

This is because in Europe the value-added taxes are built into the price, whereas here in Canada they are added to the price. As a result, you end up with an item priced at $6.99 costing costing $7.83 when it comes time to pay. You rarely see prices like that in Europe, so there's little use for a 'penny' or a 'nickel.'

I do question cashier's ability to cope, though. Even today, if I'm buying an item that is $7.83 and I present $8 and say "keep the pennies" the cashier becomes VERY confused. S/he's very used to counting out all the change, and leaving change in her drawer is puzzling to them. I guess once there are no pennies in there, the problem will go away.

Re:Excellent;

[Sparton]

I suggest your experience will prove to be atypical.

In most cases rounding will go UP by a penny or four, because of the tendency to price things at xxx.99.

Because taxes do wonder things to multiplying x.99 to things that also end in values that need to be rounded up. Sure.

To be clear, I'm being sarcastic.

[...] because retailers will round ALL prices up to the next nickle, whether payment is by cash, credit, or check.

Yes, I know the definition of rounding, but mark my words, nobody will be rounding down.

Except that rounding only happens for cash transactions. Debit/credit/etc pays the same not-rounded-to-a-nickle amount as before, regardless to whether the user would have saved or spent a few pennies more.

Hell, because of that rule, Canadians have more power to save money. Just debit when you'd have to round up, and pay cash when it rounds down!

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also a time cost in using pennies. Man-hours are wasted making exact change to the penny. Man-hours are wasted waiting for grandma hunting down pennies in the bottom of her purse. This time is multiplied by everyone in line at the cash register. It's a lot faster making change with only quarters, dimes and nickels. In fact Chipotle restaurant has already rounded everything to the nearest quarter, makes their long lines fly by the cash register.

Re:Excellent;

[Russ1642]

AHHH. My $10,000 in sales is off by 11 cents. I'm so totally screwed. AHHHH. The reality is that cash sales never balance anyways. There's significant error in the cash handling process as it is.

Re:Excellent;

[RoverDaddy]

That really is a DERP because "In God We Trust" is on the edge of the Presidential dollar coins and on the face of the Sacagawea dollar coins.

Re:Excellent;

[BasilBrush]

The US has had a $1 coin in regular circulation since 1999 (and special printings in 1979-1981 before that). However, the government hasn't been able to convince people to use them instead of dollar bills.

They don't have to persuade. They just have to stop printing dollar bills, and continue to withdraw used dollar bills that come into the banking system in a worn state. Problem solved.

Re:Excellent;

[PRMan]

Then put "In God We Trust" on them and the problem disappears. In fact, the key to acceptance may be to put as many images and slogans of the $1 bill as possible. George Washington's same facial image on the front, the eagle with the arrows on the back (everyone hates the spooky pyramid anyway), E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust. If it looks the same, people will accept it.

But somehow, feminists have seemingly been in charge of dollar coins putting Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea on them which very few people know of or respect, instead of a president that everyone respects.

Re:Excellent;

[Russ1642]

Retailers will happily accept pennies and must anyways. What they're not required to do is make change to the penny, or require that you pay to the penny.

Re:Excellent;

[BasilBrush]

In most cases rounding will go UP by a penny or four, because of the tendency to price things at xxx.99.

Then there's a choice:
a) Have the new typical price xxx.00
b) Have the new typical price xxx.95

You're assuming that (a) applies. However the same marketing thought that thinks xxx.99 is better tahn xxx.00 will think that xxx.95 is better than xxx.00.

So it may well be that (b) is adopted more often. If (b) is adopted even one fifth of the times, then overall, on average, prices stay the same.

Yes, I know the definition of rounding, but mark my words, nobody will be rounding down.

I think you're wrong. But if you're right, then at least there's the bonus of not having to trouble with irrelevant amounts of change.

Re:Excellent;

[KiloByte]

I still can't fathom how posting "prices" that are different from what you actually pay may be considered a good idea.

It adds to customer confusion, cashier's work, and the benefit is... what? That it stresses how much the government gouges you for? That's not useful for anything but a political statement, and if so, it should note the credit card robbery as well.

Re:Excellent;

[BasilBrush]

If the metal in the penny was worth more than the penny people would be melting them down, as they did with gold coins. Clearly that is not happening.

You'd have to do more than just melt it down. You'd need to separate out the steel, nickle, copper, zinc and tin.

Re:Excellent;

[compro01]

The 2.5 gram 1982-1996 penny is 2.02 cents worth of copper at present price ($3.67/lb)

The 1997-2007 zinc penny is 0.46 cents of zinc ($0.92/lb)

No idea what the metal worth of the 2008-2012 steel penny is.

Re:Excellent;

[Andrewkov]

In Canada we have sales tax applied at the checkout, so whatever the price ends with, .99 or .00 or something else, doesn't matter.

Re:Excellent;

[sortius_nod]

The higher denominations are always more likely to be spent though. If you have a jar of 1c coins vs a jar of $1 coins, a person is more likely to dip into the $1 jar than the 1c jar. Who wants to count out 1500c for a 6 pack of beer? I'd rather I with the 15 $1 coins.

As a side note, us Aussies got rid of our 1c & 2c coins years ago, hasn't hurt our economy, & our dollar is at US$1.05.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, there are now investment-type hoarders who are storing millions of pennies waiting for a change in the law. They prefer the old copper-heavy type, but I bet there are some who don't see the point in the effort of sorting when even the new ones have a positive melt value.

Re:Excellent;

[CohibaVancouver]

I believe prices SHOULD include all taxes, but to address your points -

It adds to customer confusion

Not really. The only customers who are confused are tourists from outside North America. Everyone here understands that when the price says $6.99 they will be expected to pay more than $6.99 - So no, there's no confusion.

cashier's work

Well, the cash register does all the math so there's little extra work other than the 1.5 seconds it takes to count out four or less pennies.

and the benefit is... what? That it stresses how much the government gouges you for?

That's the only one. The government would love it if the taxes were built into the price as it shields them from view.

When the federal value-added tax was instituted in Canada in the late 80s a number of stores *did* try posting their prices as "tax included." Their sales immediately plummeted as consumers fled their stores in favour of competitors with 'lower prices' - Even though the prices were exactly the same. The few retailers that had included the tax immediately backpedalled and showed their prices as pre-tax.

Re:Excellent;

[tnk1]

Of course, there's no savings anyway. Since there will be no tax givebacks or rebates, that 11M will just go into some other part of the general fund. I imagine they will find something to do with it in Ottawa. Maybe a new statue or something... made out of a copper-zinc composition, no doubt.

Re:Excellent;

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

1.03 this morning but I will assume you rounded to the nearest .05 as you Don't have Pennies.

Re:Excellent;

[KiloByte]

The only customers who are confused are tourists from outside North America. Everyone here understands that when the price says $6.99 they will be expected to pay more than $6.99 - So no, there's no confusion.

Which is a problem if you have only a small amount of cash on you, and don't know whether you're ok or you'll need to run to an ATM machine.

Re:Excellent;

[Mephistophocles]

No, I seriously doubt the government is going to give up tax revenue. The merchant is still going to pay 13 cents on that .99 purchase. The merchant will lose 2c. Or, as is more likely, they'll raise their prices accordingly; if they charge $1.01 for it, it'll get rounded up to $1.15.

Re:Excellent;

[operagost]

Those are the copper pennies minted in 1982 and earlier. The zinc in the 1982 and later pennies is worth less than a cent, although the mint already pays slightly more for the planchet before it is even struck.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Until those jars are emptied, and the couch cleaned those coins are basically a kind of interest free loan the government.

Not really. Any money not in circulation, and not being loaned out is essentially money that's invisible to the economy. The value of money is largely about how much is in circulation vs how much is needed. So really the money sitting between everyones couch raises the value of money for everyone that has that currency. It is certainly NOT a loan to the government, it just increases the value of money for everybody.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

I still can't fathom how posting "prices" that are different from what you actually pay may be considered a good idea.

It adds to customer confusion, cashier's work, and the benefit is... what? That it stresses how much the government gouges you for? That's not useful for anything but a political statement, and if so, it should note the credit card robbery as well.

for one thing, not everything has sales tax (food in some places), and states each have their own rate, as well as some counties and cities tacking their share on top of that.

Re:Excellent;

[dead_user]

This is no different than what already happens for sub-cent transactions. 1Â is NOT the lowest denominator of money used for calculation in quite a few transactions. My favorite is gas, which for some reason is always listed as ~3.079 /gal on the pump, truncated to 3.07 on the sign, but rounded to 3.08 on the bill. That is, unless you buy 10 of them, in which case the total price WOULD be 30.79. Now, this is all with the realization that those pumps are NO WAY near accurate enough to reliably pump exactly 10 gallons and not 9.95 or 10.05. At any rate, this is not removing the ability to use a penny in calculations or even to pay 19.99 exactly. You just can't do it with coins. Meh, who cares. Other than for vending machines, I can't remember actually having coins on my person to pay WITH, and many of those now take plastic.

Re:Excellent;

[compro01]

You're looking at the wrong country. Canada's pennies were copper until 1997, when they went zinc, and then they went to steel in 2008.

Re:Excellent;

[DarthBart]

Nevermind the fact that the sacred phrase of power is written on the side of the coins.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what point you're making, if anything what you state is further argument for including the tax in the price on the shelf because the customer can't be sure what taxes he/she needs to include when working out how much something will actually cost, the shop however will have already worked it out to put into their tills.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Your theory is right, but you're incorrect about the effect. I never saw so many people with change purses in all my life, and no it was not just 1/2 Euro coins. The VAT would make it easy to eliminate needing small coins, if anyone actually bothered to try. Fine with my though. Foreign currency is the cheapest souvenir you can find. The $.02 coins are particularly amusing.

Re:Excellent;

[petermgreen]

dunno what it's like where you live but here in the UK many small retailers and food outlets either insist on cash for small transactions, put a surcharge on small card transaction or don't take cards at all.

Sure you can put all your £10+ and most of your £5 transactions on the card (I personally don't because I find chip and pin more hassle than paying cash) but unless you are the kind of person who never grabs a drink or snack on the go it's difficult to avoid carrying at least some cash.

Re:Excellent;

[cayenne8]

The one dollar bill of the US just confounds me.

I don't get what confounds you.

In the US, if you buy something, and it comes out to $11 dollars, you hand them a $10 and a $1 bill and your done.

Disregarding the fact that you're not in the US and it doesn't affect you...what is do difficult to understand about the $1 US?

Re:Excellent;

[tverbeek]

This is happening all across the US too, on a more informal basis. The few places where I make cash transactions (the booze and comics shops) either keep a small leave-a-penny-take-a-penny stash on the counter to make things come out right, or just give out the "wrong" change (off by a cent or two). As far as I can tell, no one's complaining.

Re:Excellent;

[tverbeek]

"The one dollar bill of the US just confounds me."

Me too, and I have a wallet full of them. Every other comparable economy on the planet has discontinued their bank notes with a value comparable to the US dollar. Can, EU, UK, etc. The problem is that Americans are so fixated on "the dollar bill" as a nationalist symbol of pride, that it would seriously become an electoral issue if it were discontinued.

Re:Excellent;

[ewibble]

Not really. The only customers who are confused are tourists from outside North America. Everyone here understands that when the price says $6.99 they will be expected to pay more than $6.99 - So no, there's no confusion.
 

Unless of course you want to know what the actual price (seem a reasonable thing to want to know) without doing some math. Also I thought taxes differ from state to state, so if you are from out of state you may not no the price.

That's the only one. The government would love it if the taxes were built into the price as it shields them from view.
 

Well you can always put it on the receipt saying tax paid, I for one want to know how much I actually have to pay. Tax paid is secondary.

When the federal value-added tax was instituted in Canada in the late 80s a number of stores *did* try posting their prices as "tax included." Their sales immediately plummeted as consumers fled their stores in favour of competitors with 'lower prices' - Even though the prices were exactly the same. The few retailers that had included the tax immediately backpedalled and showed their prices as pre-tax.

This is the real reason it isn't listed people are lazy and do not do the math (human nature), so the products appear cheaper. So shops benefit from it, since you think you are spending less. People don't usually even round up $6.99 to $7 and retailers know it. You have to legislate that prices must include tax otherwise no one will do it.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

However, the government hasn't been able to convince people to use them instead of dollar bills.
that is easy to do, stop making dollar bills and only make the coins

Re:Excellent;

[Tubal-Cain]

But somehow, feminists have seemingly been in charge of dollar coins putting Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea on them which very few people know of or respect, instead of a president that everyone respects.

They've been using Presidents since 2007. I've got quite a few.

Re:Excellent;

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Now we can just keep around stacks of cheques for one to four cents, and deliver to shopkeepers as needed. ...but honestly, I doubt the penny will vanish for another couple of years. Coin jars, coin jars everywhere.

Thankfully most retailers stopped accepting cheques years ago.

Re:Excellent;

[LinuxIsGarbage]

My work cafeteria has been rounding to nearest $0.05 for at least five years. Though I wish they'd accept a company ID swipe, and do payroll deduction.

Good riddance to the penny I say. Though I think it was a distraction. It was the thing in the budget everyone focused on, meanwhile retirement age changed, etc.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

This is because we don't have national sales taxes. Sales taxes are set by the state, county, or even city levels. This makes advertising prices a nightmare if you include the taxes. Without including, you can send out national advertisers that say $19.99, and let the individual stores worry about the tax rates. Over in Europe, you have the same tax rate everywhere in the country.

Re:Excellent;

[able1234au]

You are concerned it will be rounded up
Now you are concerned it will round down.
You are just concerned about any change at all

Re:Excellent;

[able1234au]

In Australia they use .95 or .99 for exactly the same reason that 9.99 or 9.95 sounds so much less than 10.

Re:Excellent;

[jrumney]

I do question cashier's ability to cope, though. Even today, if I'm buying an item that is $7.83 and I present $8 and say "keep the pennies" the cashier becomes VERY confused. S/he's very used to counting out all the change, and leaving change in her drawer is puzzling to them. I guess once there are no pennies in there, the problem will go away.

This is because the cashier is required to balance their till at the end of the day, and a discrepancy of more than a tiny threshold in either direction will have them standing before their boss being accused of either stealing from the till or failing to ring up items with the forgotten intention of stealing from the till later. And there is no way they are going to resolve this problem by putting those pennies in their pocket in front of all the security cameras that are watching them. Once the bosses realise they can no longer rely on the till balancing properly, the tills will be modified to do the rounding when totalling the bill. Actually, they probably don't need modifying, as enough countries have already been down this path that there should already be a configuration setting for this.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you happen to possess an object called a "treaty card" or "Indian status card", you are exempt from this tax. Yes, yes, they could make it so the item price is recalculated for this situation instead, but they chose not to.

Re:Excellent;

[StillAnonymous]

The government would love it if the taxes were built into the price as it shields them from view.

You mean like on booze, smokes, and gasoline?

Re:Excellent;

[KiloByte]

Wait, so all you need is to get an Indian guy to buy everything for you, and you pay no tax? Either I understand you wrong or it's broken beyond repair (and that's before even getting to the racism).

Re:Excellent;

[CohibaVancouver]

Wait, so all you need is to get an Indian guy to buy everything for you, and you pay no tax?

In Canada, native Indians only have tax-free status for purchases made on Indian-nation land. So if an Indian buys a shovel at a general store on an Indian reservation there is no sales tax, but if they buy it at a Home Depot in a nearby town they pay sales tax like everyone else.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Pulling your Canadian card .. you didn't say Aboot!

Re:Excellent;

[ChunderDownunder]

In Australia we removed the 1 & 2 cent coins from circulation. So it came as a surprise that they bothered to ever mint them in the eurozone nearly a decade later.

Re:Excellent;

[KiloByte]

Do I need to point out how this can be exploited?

Re:Excellent;

[torkus]

You haven't been to a strip club in a while. Imagine tossing dollar coins at the girls?

This sounds like a new sport until the bouncer breaks my throwing arm.

Seriously though, dollar bills are commonly used for tips, vending machines, etc. and keeping 5 in my pocket would be far less convenient than 5 $1 bills.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they easier to deal with? I find $1 and $2 Euro/Pound coins annoying when in Europe because then I have to worry about coins falling out of my pockets vs bills that fit neatly together in a wallet.

Re:Excellent;

[TubeSteak]

They don't have to persuade.

Maybe you meant to say "They won't be able to persuade."

Americans may be dumb and ignorant on matters of domestic and foreign politics, but we feel very strongly about the penny and the dollar.
It'll be less painful to shove your dick in a blender than to screw with the penny or the dollar bill.

Re:Excellent;

[mdielmann]

You haven't been to a strip club in a while. Imagine tossing dollar coins at the girls?

This sounds like a new sport until the bouncer breaks my throwing arm.

Seriously though, dollar bills are commonly used for tips, vending machines, etc. and keeping 5 in my pocket would be far less convenient than 5 $1 bills.

While all those excuses have a certain amount of validity, this doesn't stop millions of people from coping just fine without $1 bills.

Re:Excellent;

[CanEHdian]

Ithe benefit is... what? That it stresses how much the government gouges you for? That's not useful for anything but a political statement, and if so, it should note the credit card robbery as well.

EXACTLY. Having lived in Europe for a long time, on a conscious level consumers do know how much Value Added Tax they pay (Netherlands currently 21 percent!) but in day-to-day live no one stops and calculates daily how much tax they paid on their purchases. "The price" is say 121 Euros, not 100 Euros plus a 21 Euro cut for the government.

The North-American system (even if it's technically a different tax, a sales tax) serves as a constant reminder that you are buying something from whomever sells it to you, and that they also collect the tax on the governments' behalf.

This keeps taxes lower, since the consumer is constantly reminded how much tax is included in the amount going out of their wallet. Proof-in-point: gasoline prices are usually posted with all taxes, fees, levies, included so you don't see how much you pay for the gas and how much goes to the government (including sales-tax-on-carbon-tax).

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

Which is why most places raise their "normal" price to be the credit card price and offer a "discount" for cash.
fits the letter of the agreement perfectly fine, but amounts to exactly the same thing. I've many times encountered a place where the price says $100, I pull out my visa and the business owner cringes and says, "If you pay cash I'll give it to you for $95"

Interestingly enough though, one of the stores I shop at (moderate sized chain retailer) used to offer a cash discount but discontinued it with the logic that the extra charges they had to pay for the credit cards were more than made up for by the extra labour expenses of handling cash vs electronic transactions.

Re:Excellent;

[Martin Blank]

In many locations, they're only required to accept up to a certain number of pennies, often 100. This is to prevent someone from coming in with bags of pennies to pay for something because of the costs to the business of having to count all of the pennies.

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

This was something that greatly confused me on a recent trip to the UK, Where I live I barely ever need to carry cash, as a result, when going to the UK I only converted a small amount of $ to £ as I didn't expect to use cash that much anyway (I was in the UK for 2 weeks, and if I remember correctly we had about £200 cash total between my wife and I, with plans to eat out for all meals, and do a lot of sight seeing, museums, shows, etc) .

At home I can't remember the last time I paid for anything with cash, but in the UK I unfortunately discovered almost everywhere I went that I simply couldn't use my VISA which I expected would be nearly universal.

By the end of the trip when I got back to Heathrow we were down to £5.36 in cash and I was quite relieved to have made it through (sure I could have taken out more somewhere, but the fees to do so would have been a LOT more than the conversion I paid at home) (we went through the shops in the airport and tried to figure out what the best bang for out buck was in sweets for that last £5.36 so as not to have any left over when we got home!)

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

Canada already has a $0.50 piece, they're just incredibly rare.

Re:Excellent;

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Boo freaking hoo. Adapt.

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

I wish they'd accept a company ID swipe, and do payroll deduction.

Now that is a plan that would make sense! think of how much it would save them in cash handling, not to mention it would be easier for the employees as they wouldn't have to think about how much money they brought with them.

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

I was shocked when I went to the states a couple years back and found retailers still accepted cheques there, good luck finding one in Canada that will!
(How would you know the cheque is good anyway?) I Canada most retailers give you 3 choices, cash, credit, or debit. (and to be honest, I can't remember the last time I chose cash...)

Re:Excellent;

[Samantha Wright]

Did they? Well that makes my comment even more "woosh" in the moderation department. Callooh callay.

Re:Excellent;

[LinuxIsGarbage]

To address the second half, they recently installed a white label ATM. I thought people must have managed over the past decades, but it's amazing how popular it is.

Re:Excellent;

[mrmeval]

It's complex, if they're just a cashier then in some businesses that change you left them will make their drawer over at the end of the day which can result in dismissal. If they take the change out and leave it on the counter or in a dish they can get dismissed for using them as counters for how much they cheat customers out of change. If they pocket them it can be said to be company money and they can be dismissed and in some jurisdiction the store could press charges with a strong chance of a heavy fine or jail time.

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

Those things are just a disaster, What a way to pay $25 to get $20 from the machine...
If you do that every day to buy your lunch, you're probably paying way too much for lunch!

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

I can have a 100 CHF in my pockets and it will last me for about 1 to 2 months.

Bish doch hald en Geizkragen!

Re:Excellent;

[mjwx]

1.03 this morning but I will assume you rounded to the nearest .05 as you Don't have Pennies.

Australia has never had pennies.

They were always called the 1 or 2 cent piece.

BTW, it's back to 1.04.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

No, all the government needs to do is revalue the currency by a factor of ten. Then everything makes as much sense (and costs the same) as in 1960. No need to futz with denominations or coin content.

Re:Excellent;

[quenda]

Australia has never had pennies.
 

Are you still sucking your mother's teat there kid? We had pennies right up until about 1966.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=australian+penny

Oddly, I thought Canada and the US had both adopted dollars and cents long ago too.

Re:Excellent;

[quenda]

I still can't fathom how posting "prices" that are different from what you actually pay may be considered a good idea.

Even the Americans are only willing to take it so far. High-tax items such as alcohol, gasoline and tobacco are sold with tax-included prices.
Though the $1 air fares are an oddity. (plus $147 taxes and fees).

Re:Excellent;

[quenda]

In Australia, prices are inclusive for convenience, but every invoice or sales docket must state the total amount of tax included.
It is certainly not hidden. And of course everyone knows the tax rate is 10%. It will be a courageous politician who increases the rate.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Woooooosh !

Re:Excellent;

[Teun]

Few transactions at the till involve single item purchases so the final price could be anything.

Compare it with fuel prices in tenth of a cent per liter, no one expects to actally pay the last 3/10 c.

Your argument sucks :)

Re:Excellent;

[Teun]

Don't think you'r the only or first one that's done away with the cent and are now rounding off to the nearest dime, many tourists are likely to know the system from home or some other destination.

Re:Excellent;

[Teun]

The rules for rounding up/down are part of fhe law and statistically there'll be just as many ups as downs as check out prices are typically not for a single item, no one looses out.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great in Canada.
Here in the U.S., I expect it to go more like this:
My breakfast = $3.66
I'm asked for $3.70

so you've effectively increased the cost with no added benefit to me.

Re:Excellent;

[Phisbut]

Damn straight! As an American expat in Canada, I truly truly hate returning to the states and getting a wallet full of ones. Having $1 and $2 coins makes money so much easier to deal with. I say let's go the next step now: throw out the nickel and quarter, and give us a $.50 piece.

We already do have a $0.50 piece. It's been minted since 1870 and still is, but for some reason, people hoard them instead of spending them.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

Chipotle restaurant has already rounded everything to the nearest quarter, makes their long lines fly by the cash register.

Until grandma stands there counting out 75 pennies.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't been to a strip club in a while. Imagine tossing dollar coins at the girls?

Nobody uses $1 at strip clubs unless you're in Guatemala.

I also suppose you've never heard of the toonie slide.

Re:Excellent;

[CohibaVancouver]

Do I need to point out how this can be exploited?

Yes.

Re:Excellent;

[KiloByte]

Indian A sets up a store in a reservation, and stocks up all sorts of goods. This is an official business. Indian B takes money from non-indians (unofficially), purchases the goods and delivers them to the real customers. A and B may take some extra cut, no one has to pay the sales tax.

Re:Excellent;

[hobarrera]

Good thing Canada doesn't produce dollar bills any more and instead uses the $1 loonie coin and $2 toonie coin.

The US has had a $1 coin in regular circulation since 1999 (and special printings in 1979-1981 before that). However, the government hasn't been able to convince people to use them instead of dollar bills.

The government couldn't conviced the people? I though the government represented the people! Silly me!

That aside, why on earth would one prefer coins? They're in no way superior to bills. I just dump them in a jar when I get home, and change them for a $50 every couple of months. Bills are lighter and more portable than coins.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

A and B may take some extra cut, no one has to pay the sales tax.

Some extra cut... like maybe 3% each?

Re:Excellent;

[compro01]

The currency act actually specifies those limits of what amounts of what denominations they're required to accept.

No more than 25 pennies, 100 nickels, 100 dimes, 40 quarters, 25 loonies or 20 toonies.

If you want to try using more than those limits and they don't feel like handling that much change, they can legally tell you to go away and come back with your payment in sensible denominations.

Re:Excellent;

[compro01]

At which point the CRA and/or the Department of Aboriginal Affairs notices that A is getting way the hell more status business than the reserve population could justify and starts auditing.

Re:Excellent;

[Anonymous Coward]

We have $0.50 pieces.

Re:Excellent;

[JigJag]

Hear hear!

I moved to Canada, and this was a major frustration point at the beginning for me. Things are slowly starting to change. For instance, last week, a law went in effect so that prices for flights and trips must include all taxes and fees when advertised. Hopefully, this will become a trend and all prices will be all-taxes included.

JigJag

Re:Excellent;

[CohibaVancouver]

B takes money from non-indians (unofficially), purchases the goods and delivers them to the real customers.

This is against the law. Law enforcement steps in and charges sellers and buyers.

Re:Excellent;

[lsatenstein]

Yes, you're right, it costs 1.6 cents per penny.

citation: metro news

No, that is not right. Your own source specifies that 1.6 cents is the MANUFACTURING cost, not the price of the metal in the penny.

If the metal in the penny was worth more than the penny people would be melting them down, as they did with gold coins. Clearly that is not happening.

Are we really looking at a 5 to one devaluation of the money, where a Nickel will buy what a penny did? Think what that will do to pensioners. EVIL CANADA, THINK OF THE SIDE EFFECTS. DO NOT DO THAT

Re:Excellent;

[lsatenstein]

The reason the penny costs so much to keep in circulation is not solely the cost of minting. If a penny costs $0.02 to mint but is used in 10,000 transaction in it's life time that would be ok.

The problem with the penny is that they don't get spent. The mint needs to keep producing new ones for retailers to give out and people go home and throw them in a coffee can.

Oddly, this is the exact argument in favour of $1, $2, and $5 coins. People don't spend coins as easily, they tend fall between couch cushions or collect in jars. Until those jars are emptied, and the couch cleaned those coins are basically a kind of interest free loan the government.

===
Actually, this removing coins from circulation raises the value of the dollar. So, the government should be happy. They are selling money and will likely never have to repay it.

Re:Excellent;

[lsatenstein]

Did you miss the part where it said purchases would be rounded to the nearest nickle?

As a Canadian I can tell you that the pennies will disappear quickly, because the banks have been told to collect them.

The place I get my morning breakfast has already started rounding to the nearest nickle. My breakfast comes to $3.66 total, and I am always asked for $3.65

I for one, say "About bloody time!"

Will the Government allow rounding of the gst and pst (Federal and Provincial sales taxes) ? So, where a bill with tax came to $5.16, will the government forgive the penny?

Re:Excellent;

[Garridan]

Right. They're rare -- there are more Canadians than $.50 coins in circulation. They've given numismatists $.50 pieces. They have not given the people $.50 pieces, which is what I meant by "give us a $.50 piece."

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

Of course that leads to a question I've often had...
Is there any way to get your hands on a Canadian $0.50 piece that does not involve paying significantly more than $0.50?

Re:Excellent;

[green1]

Probably because so few are ever minted...
Of course this leads to the question, how does one get their hands on a $0.50 piece without spending significantly more than $0.50?

Re:Excellent;

[GuldKalle]

Cash registers are able to handle rounding. Balancing books will be no harder than before.

Re:Excellent;

[phoenix_rizzen]

Every gas pump in BC and Alberta (possibly all of Canada), shows the price breakdown for a litre of gas (federal taxes and fees, provincial taxes and fees, regional taxes and fees, and the little bit left as profit).

Re:Excellent;

[DarwinSurvivor]

I think you need to read the next line...

Re:Excellent;

[quenda]

I think you need to read the next line...

Nope, the Australia Penny was never "called the 1 or 2 cent piece."
It was 12 to the shilling, so 0.833 cents, and not used after decimalisation. The sixpence coin was still used for a while, worth five cents.

Rounded...

[Anonymous Coward]

Up or Down in the customer's favor?

Re:Rounded...

[AnonyMouseCowWard]

Both.

Down when it should be (0.01, 0.02, 0.06, 0.07) and up when it should be (0.03, 0.04, 0.08, 0.09).

Re:Rounded...

[Ozeroc]

Well the US Military stores (BX/PX/Commissary) have been doing this in Europe for their cash transactions for a long time (at least the 10 years I've been here). Seeing a penny is pretty rare. Apparently it wasn't worth the cost to ship them here from the USA.

Re:Rounded...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Late 80's, possibly 1990. I was at Ramstein AB when they did it.

Re:Rounded...

[Anonymous Coward]

Up or Down in the customer's favor?

From the frigging *three sentence* summary: "Cash transactions will be rounded to the nearest nickel.". If you don't know what 'rounding to the nearest nickel' means - look it up.

Re:Rounded...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I responded to this in the past, might as well again.

Rounded up or down: Who the fuck cares?!? This ONLY affects cash transactions. Only. And EVEN in this case, let's take a look at some numbers.

Let's say that every single time, it's rounded in favour of the store. Technically, it's SUPPOSED to be rounded up or down as appropriate (and I personally confirm that this is done, from having looked at my receipt a handful of times after buying a Slurpee or something with change), but let's say for the sake of argument that every single cash-accepting store is all corrupt, and all takes the rounding.

Now, let's kick it up another notch. Not only does the store take ALL rounding in their favour, but by some fantastical luck, every single transaction will be 4 cents in their favour, the absolute maximum possible.

How many cash purchases do you do a day? I'm guessing extraordinarily few, but let's say you do 3. Coffee in the morning, you buy lunch every day, and coffee on the way home or something. It's extraordinarily unlikely that you'll find people paying cash 3 times a day, but let's run with it.

So that's 3 times a day. Hell, let's keep it for weekends, too. And holidays. And leap year every year, 366 days of losing 4 cents, 3 times a day.

That totals a whopping $43.92 a year. A YEAR! And if you can afford to buy a coffee TWICE every single day, AND buy your lunch every single day instead of pack your own, $44 should not be breaking your bank. If it is, you have severe money-management problems. And an extraordinarily easy, FREE way to eliminate at least 2/3 of that, if not all of it, is to buy your coffee with a rechargeable card that ALL COFFEE SHOPS AROUND HERE HAVE. Many food places in office buildings have the same. So EVEN if you're so severely hurting for money that $44 a year will destroy your bank account, you can easily eliminate that by... well, aside from not buying coffee and lunch every day... just using a card to pay.

The shops themselves will get a pittance in profit compared to actual, regular profit from sales. And when word gets out that one store is ALWAYS rounding in favour of the store, people WILL go elsewhere. There's a ton of options for virtually any good or service, so it's extremely rare that you would be forced to only go to one retail outlet for anything normal. And if that's the case... just use a debit card or suck up the 4 cents.

I honestly can't understand why people go ballistic about "OH MY GOD, THEY MIGHT ROUND ONLY IN THEIR FAVOUR!" It's fucking pointless to argue that. Tell you what, you want to drive to my place, I'll give you a large handful of pennies I haven't rolled yet. That'll make you "even" for the next year or two.

Re:Rounded...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good Lord. They way people argue about this, it's as if rounding up -every- transaction by 2 cents is going to send somebody to the poor house, or rounding -down- every transaction by two cents is going to give somebody enough extra dough to vacation in Monaco. First of all, the whole point of eliminating the penny is that people already -throw away- pennies because they're worth so little. Second, the law is going to require rounding on the final total of a transaction so about 50% of purchases will round -up- and about 50% will round -down-, and there's no practical way for a merchant to game the system.

Re:Rounded...

[flimflammer]

I pray that the US eventually makes this move, and adopts these same guidelines...

Re:Rounded...

[cammoblammo]

The University of Melbourne has crunched the numbers, and you're right, the world probably isn't about to end:

http://www.scc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/whatisstatistics/coins.html

Re:Rounded...

[ChunderDownunder]

(x % 5)
-> 1, 2 : down
-> 3, 4 : up

Remember it's on your total bill, so even if everything in your $50 shopping trolley is 97 cents, you'll still only be overcharged a maximum of 3 cents. Swings and roundabouts - on your next transaction they may refund 2 cents...

Re:Rounded...

[ChunderDownunder]

Oops, I meant to say even if everything is 98c, youll only incur a 2c overcharge on the total.

I'm gaming the system

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Buy a product that costs (x*5)+2 cents where x is a positive integer.
2. Repeat step 1 eleventy billion times.
3. Return all the items to the store in one batch
4. There is no '?????' step if you can do math
5. Profit!

--MyLongNickName

Re:I'm gaming the system

[Anonymous Coward]

You only get refunded for the amount on your receipt, not the price on the tag. eg: This is why store ask fore receipt. You can only gain 5 cents no matter how many billion times you repeat step one. Also you forgot to add img tag with trollface.jpg at the end. 1/10 for the attempt.

Re:I'm gaming the system

[mark-t]

You first.

US military did this

[YrWrstNtmr]

Late 80's, on european bases. Round up or down to the nearest 5 cent increment. Worked like a charm. The only place pennies were taken was the Post Office.

It's about time

[Magorak]

I have wondered for years how long it would take us Canadians to finally get rid of that awful piece of currency. Especially given that it takes more money to produce it than it is actually worth. No one can buy anything with pennies anymore and they really are nothing more than just metal wasting space. Plus, vending machines have never taken them which has made them even more useless than before.

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially given that it takes more money to produce it than it is actually worth.

While there are plenty of reasons for doing away with the penny (YAY!) - this is not one of them. A penny can be used thousands and thousands of times - so the fact that it costs a bit more to produce than one penny, is irrelevant.

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

As an addition to that: note that as soon as the material of the penny (ie: not the production costs, just the actual metal) is worth substantially more than the penny, then it becomes a different story. People could start making a profit by turning their coins in for scrap metal.

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, vending machines have never taken them which has made them even more useless than before.

Does that make no sense?

Re:It's about time

[compro01]

A penny can be used thousands and thousands of times

Theoretically yes, but in reality, you get a few hundred transactions out of it, then someone tosses the worthless coin in a jar or in the trash and it disappears from circulation, meaning you now need to make a new one.

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

> Plus, vending machines have never taken them which has made them even more useless than before.
I clearly remember my mom giving me a penny many times we went to the grocery store so I could buy a single small gumball from a vending machine.

Actually we stopped making them in 2012

[JonMartin]

The Mint stopped making new pennies last May (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2012/05/04/mb-canada-last-penny-mint.html). But they are still in circulation. What happens on February 4th is the Mint stops putting pennies it gets back into circulation. What is unclear is when exactly stores will be required to stop giving pennies out.

Re:Actually we stopped making them in 2012

[kinadian]

Actually, it's not unclear. Right in the Mint's website (linked to in the article): "Moreover, pennies can still be used in cash transactions indefinitely with businesses that choose to accept them."

The penny will remain legal tender for as the foreseeable future. As you stated, the only thing happening now is that the mint will no longer be distributing pennies after February 4th, 2013.

It's not mentioned on the website, but I have also heard that if you bring your pennies to the bank on or after Feb 4, they will be collected and returned to the mint where they will be destroyed.

Re:Actually we stopped making them in 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be "required" to do so as soon as it is impossible for them to get pennies to hand out...

Re:Actually we stopped making them in 2012

[T.E.D.]

It doesn't have to be a requirement. At some point they will be scarce enough that it will just be eaiser not to use them.

Re:Actually we stopped making them in 2012

[TubeSteak]

Actually, it's not unclear. Right in the Mint's website (linked to in the article): "Moreover, pennies can still be used in cash transactions indefinitely with businesses that choose to accept them."

The penny will remain legal tender for as the foreseeable future. As you stated, the only thing happening now is that the mint will no longer be distributing pennies after February 4th, 2013.

If the mint is no longer distributing pennies to the banks,
and banks are no longer distributing pennies to business owners,
where the fuck are you going to find businesses that choose to accept pennies?

Ask a stupid question...

[Chas]

Why the transaction will ALWAYS be in the merchant's favor of course!

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Why the transaction will ALWAYS be in the merchant's favor of course!

I really doubt this will happen. For the 3 to 4 cents you might gain it is just not worth the risk that someone might pull out their phone, calculate it and throw a major fit in your store. Even if no one ever throws a fit, word will get around, (See internet) and people will simply not shop at retailers who do this.
I usually have very little faith in people, but in this case I will tend to believe in honesty.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Neither. To the *nearest* 5 cent increment, be it up or down.

Let's assume the transaction is right around $1:
0.98, 0.99, 1.00 ,1.01, 1.02 = $1.00
1.03, 1.04, 1.05, 1.06, 1.07 = $1.05
1.08, 1.09, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12 = $1.10

It ends up working pretty evenly.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[ais523]

Sensible merchants would just use divisible-by-5 prices to avoid issues with rounding.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Chaos Incarnate]

That might work in Europe, where the prices all include VAT already, but I thought Canada was like the US and added their sales tax on top of the listed price.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Anonymous Coward]

It ends up working pretty evenly.

Not when the merchant sets the price.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[ToddDTaft]

When I was in Australia in the '90s, they had already eliminated their coins smaller than 5 cents, and the common practice was to always round down cash transactions. So, if your total was $1.99 and you paid with cash, you'd only get charged $1.95. If you paid with EFTPOS (debit card) or a credit card, you'd be charged the full $1.99.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Not when the merchant sets the price.

Yes, when I can buy more than one item at a time. The rounding is on the entire transaction.
If the customer can buy 3 or more random items at a time, please demonstrate a pricing scheme that would consistently cause the customer to pay an extra $0.02.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[localman57]

Yes. Because they'll always be able to set the prices so that regardless of how many items you buy, the final total mod .05 will always be .01 or .02.

Oh, wait. No. That's impossible.

Jackass.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[ToddDTaft]

Sensible merchants would just use divisible-by-5 prices to avoid issues with rounding.

This doesn't always work. A common example where it doesn't work is grocery stores where certain items are sold by weight.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[eth1]

Why the transaction will ALWAYS be in the merchant's favor of course!

Depends. I suspect that "We always round cash down!!" will be plastered in quite a few front windows to try to attract customers. Of course it's easy for merchants to game the original price so this always works out in their favor. Depending on how much the CC companies are gouging the merchant, always rounding in the customer's favor might actually save both the customer and merchant money if more people pay cash.

In any case, I wouldn't really care. Given the amount of cash transactions I make every year, even if they cheated and rounded .01 up to .05 every time, my maximum yearly exposure would be about... $1? Maybe 2?

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Obfuscant]

it is just not worth the risk that someone might pull out their phone, calculate it ...

I have no idea what the antecedent for "it" is here. Calculate what? The price rounded down? How many people will need a smartphone to calculate a rounded-to-a-nickel price? Not many.

...and people will simply not shop at retailers who do this.

People will get over this pretty quickly, if they even notice the two or three cent price increase on every product that is currently ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7. People who buy 10 widgets that used to cost $0.67 and is changed to $0.69 will pay twenty cents more overall. Everyone who buys just one will pay three cents more than they did before. Two results in a four cent increase. Three will result in a pre-rounding price of $2.07, which rounds down to $2.05, but is still four cents more than they would have paid before.

Applied to an economy as a whole, this can quickly add up to $11 million. But it's Canada, so maybe it will only be a few dollars.

I usually have very little faith in people, but in this case I will tend to believe in honesty.

Whose "honesty" are you believing in? The people who won't notice the change, or will get over it pretty quickly, or the stores who have the right to change prices when they need to?

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[mark-t]

That only works if there is no sales tax.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Darinbob]

Not necessarily. In Finland they did the rounding too and I would sometimes get things rounded in my favor (not sure if Swedish rounding used). However the majority of the time with prepackaged goods the prices were pre-rounded anyway (and included tax). So the rounding that I noticed only came when buying something that had to be weighed.

Consider it this way. What do the stores do today if the actual price ends up with a fractional part of a penny left over? Is it rounded in your favor or towards the store's favor? Do you even care about 0.371 of a penny? So why is it a big deal when it's a fraction of a nickel?

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can set the prices, they can set their own rounding policy. Regardless of if they declare any transaction total ending with 0.01 or 0.02 will be rounded up, or simply rounding up every item so that it can't end in something other than a 0 or 5 (even if some things are sold by weight, they can set the scales to round each item however they want).

Of course, if they inflate prices as a result, people are free to shop elsewhere or just buy less.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not possible. First, there's sales tax on almost everything. Second, the merchant can engineer the pricing to make the rounding work in his favour when you buy one or two of an item, but then the next person buys 3 at once and the merchant comes out even.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[YrWrstNtmr]

If they can set the prices, they can set their own rounding policy. Regardless of if they declare any transaction total ending with 0.01 or 0.02 will be rounded up,

The merchant can declare no such thing. Transactions ending in 1 or 2 round down to the 0. Ending in 6 or 7, down to the 5. Period, end of story.
And again, it is for the entire transaction. Over time, your personal purchases average out.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[HappyHead]

it is just not worth the risk that someone might pull out their phone, calculate it ...

I have no idea what the antecedent for "it" is here. Calculate what? The price rounded down? How many people will need a smartphone to calculate a rounded-to-a-nickel price? Not many.

The need for calculation here is because we have a 13% "Harmonized Sales Tax" in Ontario, and various combinations of Federal and Provinical taxes across Canada depending on which province you're in. Thus, when you pick up a can of Pringles for $2.99, it really costs $3.38 after tax - which would round up to $3.40. If they mark the Pringles down to $2.97, after tax it's $3.36, which _should_ round to $3.35, but some retailers will try to charge $3.40 anyways, and blame the difference on "tax" - since the tax is _NEVER_ listed on price tags, without a calculator or a super math brain, you don't know how much the purchase is going to cost you. People already do the whole "calculate the tax and yell at the cashier if it's not right" thing, and there are merchants here (like the gas station nearest my home) where the cashier/owner has a tendency to ring in the wrong prices, and blame it on "tax" when it doesn't match the sticker price. (Hint: $3 times 1.13 does not equal $4.)

Also, our taxes are never easy to multiply numbers... it's always 7%, 8%, 13%, and so on...

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[YrWrstNtmr]

A store owner knowingly cheating on the final tally has nothing to do with this plan. It may offer him an extra avenue to cheat with, but he's doing it anyway.

...but some retailers will try to charge $3.40 anyways, and blame the difference on "tax"
...there are merchants here (like the gas station nearest my home) where the cashier/owner has a tendency to ring in the wrong prices
Question is: Why do you continue to patronize a merchant that knowingly, purposely cheats his customers?

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[HappyHead]

Answer is: I don't.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[aardvarkjoe]

How many people will need a smartphone to calculate a rounded-to-a-nickel price?

Most Americans. I'd give you an exact number, but I don't have my smartphone right now.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[canadian_right]

Cash registers are not going to show the rounded cost, there are going to show the actual cost. The rounding will be done manually IF you pay cash. The law stipulates rounding down for 1,2 and up for 3,4 cents.

Nothing changes except your change. The government collects the same taxes, the merchants balance sheet is the same, the ONLY change is the FEW cash transactions.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[canadian_right]

The same legislation getting rid of the penny also makes rounding down on 1,2 cents the law. You may only round up on 3,4 cents. This only applies to CASH transactions.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[cammoblammo]

No. With cash transactions the common practice in Australia is to round to the nearest 5 cent increment, whether up or down. It's not that difficult to do though because the rounding's done by the cash register anyway.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Anonymous Coward]

The average McDonalds does 575,000 transactions per year. If they averaged $0.02 additional per transaction then that'd add up to $11,500, or 0.4% of their annual sales. Psychological pricing (e.g. 0.99 is cheap, 0.95 is higher quality) far outweighs any benefit from this sort of manipulation. (Realistically, they couldn't average anywhere close to $0.02 per transaction as it doesn't work mathematically.)

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[quacking duck]

Throw in the fact taxes are added on top of the listed prices, and it really is a crapshoot that averages out over time.

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[iarnell]

Come to Alberta - no PST, so tax is a nice easy 5%

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[green1]

Or if you are sensible in how you calculate your prices...

I've seen a few retailers (extremely rare) that include the tax in their prices (very sensible) but I've also seen a fair number of retailers that have calculated their prices so that when you add tax the total always works out to a nice round number. (eg, in Alberta we have no provincial tax, only the federal GST of 5%, so a retailer that makes all their prices things like $0.95 or $0.96 after tax round to $1.00 and $9.52 or $9.53 after tax rounds to $10.00) It's nice in that customers aren't fiddling for change, and it probably makes their book keeping and coin handling much simpler too. (admittedly these are usually fast food kiosks where people pick from a relatively limited number of items, and where speed of the transaction is of paramount importance, so reducing awkward change is in the retailers best interest)

Re:Ask a stupid question...

[Waccoon]

Wait... am I still on Slashdot?

Bad move.

[Lisias]

The potential loss for the society (caused by the rounding) is far more expensive that the cost of producing the pennies.

Large stores will get a non taxable "profit" from raising to the nearest nickel, small ones probably will get some loss from raising to the lowest nickel. This kind of white "washing cash" is common here at Brazil, as the people is already used to this rounding (to up) thing - stores commonly doesn't have the change.

It would be a wiser move simply eradicate the penny from current currency. This will leverage the problem to everybody, and the taxes would not be evaded.

Re:Bad move.

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't. The book-keeping is still done to the nearest penny, the actual bill is too the nearest penny, the taxes are still paid to the nearest penny. The only difference is that your physical change, if you pay by cash, is rounded to the nearest nickel.

Re:Bad move.

[YrWrstNtmr]

Large stores will get a non taxable "profit" from raising to the nearest nickel, small ones probably will get some loss from raising to the lowest nickel.

How so? The entire transaction is rounded up or down, to the nearest nickel. If you buy more than one item, that screws the 1 or 2 cent price fixing scheme.

Re:Bad move.

[Anonymous Coward]

while it is entirely conceivable (and probable to occur) to rig prices to always cause a round-up, even with taxes... that really only applies for single item purchases where the final price can be exactly determined.. and then it's only for the cash transactions. overall, that combination of a single item and cash sale is probably pretty small. multiple item purchases will balance out, as their totals and whether they will round up or down can't reliably be determined ahead of time. and of course, non-cash transactions are unaffected.

and there really isn't a point to rounding the prices on the shelf... except at places that actually manually key each price on the register (no automated scanner or simple item/sku to key in). all but the very smallest retail stores have bar code scanners. and consider that prices rounded to the nickel, when taxes are added.. probably won't end up ending in a 5 either.

if a store really wanted to reduce the small change handling of cash transactions.. AND they primarily sold non-taxed goods, they'd be better off with 10c increments up to $2-3 prices then 25c increments after (then 50c over $10 and a dollar for over $20). but how many stores do a high percentage of untaxed, cash sales?

Re:Bad move.

[Anonymous Coward]

The gain by society is not small, either.

This means the death of the "marketing 9". You know, those extra 9's that might as well be 0's with the most significant figure rounded up? Yeah, no more 9.99 anything. It's either 10 or 9.95. And that 5 isn't so special that it looks like it's doing anything for you but hanging out with a bunch of those cool 9's.

Marketers are going to have to do better than just dropping a penny off of a price to make it sound like it costs less. And a whole nickel makes it 5 times the price reduction, which isn't good for their performance reviews.

I, for one, welcome our penniless overlords. (Well, not mine, but Canada's. I live in the U.S.A., where we all have just a few pennies left to our names.)

Re:Bad move.

[kwerle]

I don't get it. I sell things. You sell things. Everyone rounds to nickels unless the transaction isn't using hard currency. Who is losing money?

Re:Bad move.

[ZombieBraintrust]

Does the law cover that? If not then marketers can still sell things for 9.99. If you buy 5 items at 9.99 then the total comes to 49.95. You buy 4 items and then buy 1 item later you bill comes to 50.00.

Re:Bad move.

[91degrees]

The 1 cent (and 2 cent) has been abolished in quite a few countries with a currency value comparable to the dollar. They still price items at $x.99, and will round down if you buy enough that it ends up as $x.x6 or $x.x7

Re:Bad move.

[kinadian]

I honestly don't think it's that big of a deal. Remember, you've got a minimum of 5% tax on most items as well. Here in Ontario, it's 13%. Depending on the pricing, that could affect the rounding, especially when you have multiple items. And it's a maximum difference of $0.02 on the entire transaction.

In addition, it's only for cash transactions. Most of the people I know (myself included) use some form of digital transactions (debit/credit) to pay for things. There are very few locations in Canada that only accept cash.

Re:Bad move.

[Lisias]

I don't get it. I sell things. You sell things. Everyone rounds to nickels unless the transaction isn't using hard currency. Who is losing money?

You sell something for [insert-your-favorite-currnecy-here]1.996. Customer pays 2.00, you can't give 0.004 back. Customer decides it's ok.

Now repeat it a thousand times per day.

This is 0.004 * 1000 * 30 * 12 = 1440.00 per year.

Since you declared in the invoice 1.996, you pay the tax for 1.996. That 1440.00/year incoming is not taxed, and when correctly masked by a good accountant, it's plain, untaxable profit.

Re:Bad move.

[mark-t]

You can declare on the invoice that it was 1.996, but on the receipt, after the sale, the amount will still say 2.00, as long as cash is being used.

Re:Bad move.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the death of 3 digit gas pricing in the US?

Re:Bad move.

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I remember you will use Swedish rounding in Canada. This would mean most small stores make money because you charge amounts like $0.99, which will get rounded up. (This is of course disregarding the fact that advertised prices are not the prices you pay since you add GST on top; civilized countries include the VAT in the price)

Re:Bad move.

[kwerle]

Yup. Gas stations have billed at 3 decimals (on a currency that only supports 2) for decades and society has not collapsed. So I'm thinking this is a soved problem.

Re:Bad move.

[green1]

Of course that would have been a much better solution than ditching the penny, they should have ditched the penny and the nickle and adjusted all prices by one decimal place. Start pricing things as $1.2 instead of $1.23 or $1.18 And just realize that nothing in society costs so little anymore as for that 2nd decimal place to truly be relevant (when we first started minting the penny, it actually bought things, now even the smallest purchase is bound to be at least $0.50 I'd think.)

Re:Bad move.

[mjwx]

Large stores will get a non taxable "profit" from raising to the nearest nickel, small ones probably will get some loss from raising to the lowest nickel.

How so? The entire transaction is rounded up or down, to the nearest nickel. If you buy more than one item, that screws the 1 or 2 cent price fixing scheme.

Exactly, You have a can of cola priced at $0.43 at Bigmart and $0.47 at Smallway, A customer buying 2 pays $0.95 (rounded down by 1 cent) at Bigmart and 1.05 (rounded up by 1 cent) at Smallway. Anyone with half a brain knows how to get around pricing like this using odd and even volumes. In Australia, stores saw this immediately and just started pricing almost everything at $0.05 intervals (so "Only $0.99" became "Only $0.95").

Re:Bad move.

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. 4 items will be 39.96, which will be rounded down to 39.95

Re:Bad move.

[Lisias]

Corrupt politicians are promoting corruption for decades and the society didn't collapsed neither. Problem solved?

Tax evasion is tax evasion. It should be prevented, if only for principle. The law should be for everyone, or I wrong?

Re:Bad move.

[Lisias]

You can declare on the invoice that it was 1.996, but on the receipt, after the sale, the amount will still say 2.00, as long as cash is being used.

The sales tax is issued over the invoice, or over the receipt?

As far as I know, the receipt proves the value paid, to be used in the event of a refund. The taxes are figured out over the invoices...

(of course, this can vary from country to country - could be a good idea reducing our scope to Canada)

Re:Bad move.

[Lisias]

In Brazil, when things gone the way you described, they didn't ditch the Cent, but they reduced the bill's face value by 10.

So, something that used to cost Cr$ 16,45, was "relabeled" as NC$ 1,64 or NC$ 1,65 (the rounding was done as the seller's discretion).

This is a little expensive decision, as the current currency must be rebranded until new bills and coins are made - but if this happens just once or twice a century, can be a better solution.

(for the sake of completeness: in Brazil, they did this a dozen times just in the last half of the last century! Man, that was messy!)

Re:Bad move.

[kwerle]

Tax evasion is tax evasion. It should be prevented, if only for principle. The law should be for everyone, or I wrong?

You're right! So... we already have laws for tax evasion.

Non issue.

Gogo Finland

[Anonymous Coward]

Took you long enough.

We haven't had 1 or 2 cent coins in Finland since shortly after we got the Euro.

Re:Copper prices

[skade88]

China and India are both transforming their economies to be more like the west, creating a larger middle class in those countries. A larger middle class wants bigger and better housing. With China and India making up almost 4 billion people together, that is a lot of new housing, and a lot of copper that needs to go into making those houses. Supply of copper has not been able to keep up with demand. How do you expect prices of copper to stay low if the demand shoots through the roof for copper and supply does not grow accordingly?

Re:Copper prices

[MrEricSir]

Since when has a low inflation rate been a bad thing?

Re:Copper prices

[LordLimecat]

I dont know of anyone who pretends inflation doesnt exist.

Re:Copper prices

[Anonymous Coward]

There hasn't been any significant copper in a canadian penny since 1996.

94% steel, 1.5% nickel, 4.5% copper (as plating)

A big problem is that the penny is just useless. Nobody uses them, except maybe a handful of annoying old grannies who take 25 minutes to buy a cup of coffee.

So, they just get tossed into coin jars. Since they disappear from circulation almost immediately, and the government is (was) minting increasing amounts to make up for this. They don't get used either, just tossed into coin jars.

Those old copper pennies, from pre 1996, are worth ~2 cents, but the value of copper fluctuates pretty wildly.

The fact that there is such a thing as inflation is no shock to anybody, and not really a part of this story.

Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[retroworks]

We still have 9 tenths of a cent per gallon on USA gasoline sales. Maybe we can look forward to rounding it to a penny.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[CastrTroy]

Nope, up here in Canada, gas is still sold in cents/litre. But when they get rid of the penny, they'll round the total. Watch as millions of Canadians pump just the right amount of gas into their tank so that the price is always rounded down.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[ls671]

We still have 9 tenths of a cent per gallon on USA gasoline sales. Maybe we can look forward to rounding it to a penny.

In Canada, they still have variable tenths of a cent per liter, !

http://www.ontariogasprices.com/

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same in Canada, it's not 129 cents per litre. The majority of the time it is 129.9 cents per litre.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[dskoll]

I can't remember the last time I paid cash for gas in Canada. In fact, I think the only time in my life I paid cash for gasoline was in Florida when the pump wouldn't accept my Canadian credit card. I had to go in, give $50, buy my gas, and then go in again to get my change.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[Anonymous Coward]

That's unlikely since you'll likely be paying by credit/debit which will be unaffected.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[Megane]

If you pre-pay, the pump can be (and usually is) set to stop at the exact amount that you pre-paid for. The pump even slows down for the last 10 cents or so to avoid overshoot. So it's only an issue if you pre-pay for more than your tank can hold, and you have to get change.

If you pay at the pump, you're using a card anyhow, so there are no pennies involved.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[tlhIngan]

Nope, up here in Canada, gas is still sold in cents/litre. But when they get rid of the penny, they'll round the total. Watch as millions of Canadians pump just the right amount of gas into their tank so that the price is always rounded down.

A quick reprogramming of the pump will fix that to always increment in 5 cent increments.

So the first drop you pump, it would go from $0.00 to $0.05, then where it would've said $0.06-0.09, it would read $0.10. So the pump always magically rounds up.

Of course, if you chose the credit card option, it would use exact cents. But cash? It would start at 5 cents rounded up.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[bill_mcgonigle]

Watch as millions of Canadians pump just the right amount of gas into their tank so that the price is always rounded down.

Hey, that's most of a plot for a Superman VII movie. Or, Captain Canuck #1, as it were.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[operagost]

This does raise the question: if a penny is so inconsequential, why are so many people concerned about being ripped off a few cents?

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[compro01]

Or, Captain Canuck #1, as it were.

Try Alpha Flight #1.

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[green1]

Some parts of Canada still allow you to pay for your fuel AFTER you fill up...

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[mjwx]

Nope, up here in Canada, gas is still sold in cents/litre. But when they get rid of the penny, they'll round the total. Watch as millions of Canadians pump just the right amount of gas into their tank so that the price is always rounded down.

In Australia it's sold the same way but you still find fuel priced at all prices, not just multiples of 5 cents. We even use the thrid decimal point (1/10 of a cent).

But because pumps read out dollar amounts as well as volume in litres you can still put in $20.00 worth of petrol when the unit price is $1.245.

There was a popular conspiracy theory in Australia that said if you put in an extra 2 cents (as in $20.02) you get a free tank of fuel every year. That's pretty much bollocks. Assume petrol is A$1.25 per litre, you have an average 50L tank and you buy petrol every week. So 0.02 goes into $1.25 62 = times. Then 1.25 goes into 50 = 62.2 times. So 62 x 62.5 is 3875, 52 weeks in a year so that's a whole tank of fuel every 74.5 years.

The really ironic thing about this is the only people who still do it, don't pay cash. They use their card where the 0.02 doesn't get rounded down (rounding was only ever with cash payments, EFT always charged the exact amount).

Re:Meanwhile, in the USA, Gasoline at 9/10s

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, I live in Canada and the only way I pay for gas is with cash. Then again, the guy at the super cheap station I go to doesn't accept credit cards and grumbles about the cost of his debit machine, so I figure, why not--the price is right, after all. :)

Each to their own, I suppose!

LOL, keep the penny, move the decimal point.

[elkto]

I get it the currency has lost value, just move the decimal point.

Re:LOL, keep the penny, move the decimal point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your punctuation is atrocious.

Re:LOL, keep the penny, move the decimal point.

[Baldrake]

I get it the currency has lost value, just move the decimal point.

That's actually not so dumb. France did this in 1970, except they moved two decimal points.

Re:LOL, keep the penny, move the decimal point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow; grammar troll, ftw.

Re:LOL, keep the penny, move the decimal point.

[swb]

The problem with that idea isn't that it doesn't make sense, but that it would have a negative psychological appeal. Everyone who isn't a 10+ millionaire would suddenly stop being a millionaire. Million dollar houses wouldn't be.

And who wants to work for $10,000 per year? Or work for 75 cents an hour on minimum wage?

Re:LOL, keep the penny, move the decimal point.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's much better. Thank you.

Re:LOL, keep the penny, move the decimal point.

[green1]

You don't need to think about it that way. don't move the decimal place at all, just stop counting 100ths and only count 10ths.
Prices would look like $1.2 instead of $1.23 or $1.18 Should be no psychological damage there.
Think about it, when the penny was first minted, it actually bought things. but it just doesn't anymore, nothing is worth so little anymore that the 100ths of a dollar are really relevant, count everything in 10ths instead of 100ths, and move on. maybe in a few more years once nothing costs less than about $10 we can drop the decimals altogether and just use whole numbers.
We don't need to change our whole system, just drop the 100ths. no more re-working of anything required.

Re:Copper prices

[gstoddart]

Well, since most pay raises many of us have seen over the last few years are below inflation, lots of employers are pretending it doesn't exist for their staff.

I got a plan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the United States can have tourists smuggle out Canadian pennies and we can just accept them as legal tender here.

Re:I got a plan!

[eliphalet]

At current exchange rates, an American penny costs less than 0.99 Canadian cents.

Re:I got a plan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect, we accept them as the equivalent of 1 cent American pennies and save a ton on production costs. Of course there's the problem of adding money without anything to back it up into the system.

Re:Copper prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing IS wrong. This is simple supply and demand - the demand for copper has gone up like crazy, so it costs more now, which makes it cost prohibitive to produce pennies.

Go take your ridiculous ranting back to freep.

Read that as "penises"

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that as "penises" and was worried where I'd get fresh 'nuck cock.

Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[ZombieBraintrust]

No Sensible merchants will use prices where the rounding is their favor. 9.96 looks like a better price than 10.00 but with the rounding it will be the same.

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[Electrawn]

No, Advertised price at 9.96 would round down to 9.95. Then the price should increase to 10.05 or so, then jump to 10.95.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[icebike]

This.

Plus, the rounding will present such a hassle, that pricing will all be to the nickle, nobody is going to want to balance books that could be off by several hundred dollars over the course of a busy day.

All prices will end in 0 or 5 and no merchant is going to go down, everyone will just set prices directly to the next higher multiple.

More of interest, is the sales tax. Does Canada have sales taxes anywhere? Are they going to be adjusted to the nickle as well?
Will the tax authority accept taxes that are rounded, or will the merchant have to make up the rounding when forwarding the tax?

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[tmshort]

Canada has GST and HST, both of which as sales taxes. A read of the article says that a subtotal is calculate, tax is then added, and then depending on the method of payment, the amount is rounded as necessary; only for cash transactions.

The books will not be "off by several hundred dollars" because the rounding will go down 50% of the time, and up 50% of the time, averaging out to a net zero loss/gain. POS (Point-Of-Sale) software can be updated to make note of how rounding is done for each transaction, and this can be tallied at the end of the day.

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[icebike]

The books will not be "off by several hundred dollars" because the rounding will go down 50% of the time, and up 50% of the time, averaging out to a net zero loss/gain.

What is this concept of rounding DOWN? I've never encountered that in the market place. Is it some new Canukistan voodoo?

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[Anonymous Coward]

because the rounding will go down 50% of the time, and up 50% of the time, averaging out to a net zero loss/gain.

Not if you are a smart vendor and figure out the optimum prices so that it will never round down.

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[RoverDaddy]

Unless you operate a store where people can only buy one item at a time, I'd say this is impossible.

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't "always" force it, but for places where customers only buy a few items (video game, convenience stores) it might be possible to set things up to have a 60-40 or so ratio of rounding up. For a grocer, the distribution is probably erratic enough to only allow a 51-49 or so.

Re:Advertised price 9.96 = 10.00

[GuldKalle]

Book balancing is not a problem when your cash registers can handle the rounding. Many countries use rounding, so it's likely implemented in the register already.

Hidden-ish cost

[ThatsNotPudding]

My breakfast comes to $3.66 total, and I am always asked for $3.65

Except next month ALL the items on the menu WILL be rounded UP by a nickel (or maybe a even dime) to lock-in some one-time profits.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[localman57]

There's nothing to stop them from doing that now... If the market will support it, they'll raise prices. Just like now...

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[dimeglio]

Pay with a credit card then.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[h4rr4r]

This dreck is modded up to +5? Shame on you slashdot. This is Econ 101. If they could raise the price they already would have.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[BasilBrush]

If you RTFA, you'll see that the Canadian Mint his issued rounding guidelines. 1c & 2c round down. 3c & 4c round up.

Whilst clearly a business could try to ignore that and always round up, they'd tend to lose more trade through bad feeling than they could ever make up in stealing pennies.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Not being a Canadian, I will mention this. Credit cards I believe costs them money to fulfill the transaction. Hence why gas stations offer cash discounts.

It'd be so tempted to collect a bunch of Canadian pennies and pay for everything all at once with them wouldn't it? You know, years down the line when the transition is complete.

Why can't they keep the penny around until it's worn and needs to be disposed? Just mint no more starting now.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[compro01]

1. The Currency Act already has provisions for jokers like you. The penny is not legal tender for a payment of over 25 cents. Similar limitations are in place for all coins.

2. Worn? You're talking about a steel disc. Pennies don't wear out, they get considered worthless and tossed in jars (or worse, the trash) and more need to be made to maintain its availability for circulation.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[narkosys]

Hopefully they will do like in Australia and have the till show if it rounded up or down. Mind you, knowing the government and human greed, I highly doubt it.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they will be rounded up two more pennies to make it round up to the next nickel. If you don't want to take pennies, don't price your product so your customer has to use pennies. It's that simple.

My real concern is that in the U.S. we've gone sales tax crazy and this will allow them to raise sales taxes even easier than it is now. I pay 8% where I live. No one seems to care, but tell them you'll raise the income tax by 8% and they'll scream bloody murder.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[jrumney]

When NZ did this in the 1990's, they also made it law that stores that did not post a clear notice of their rounding policy at the cashier had to round everything down in favour of the customer. Most larger chains ended up doing the 1c & 2c round down, 3c and 4c round up, so that became the standard for a while until the 5c was also retired. If you let stores have any policy they like without making it public, you could end up with discriminatory practices, or in larger stores, cashiers skimming the pennies by always rounding up when the store's official policy is to round down.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[torkus]

Some genius will just run a min/max and to find the best way of ensuring every purchase comes out to $x.x3 to round up :)

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[mjwx]

2. Worn? You're talking about a steel disc. Pennies don't wear out, they get considered worthless and tossed in jars (or worse, the trash) and more need to be made to maintain its availability for circulation.

How many have gone up vacuum cleaners?

This is clearly an attempt to forestall the inevitable robot revolution which is being funded by 1 and 2 cent pieces sucked up by Roombas.

Re:Hidden-ish cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is once the penny is retired a store would be VERY happy to accept an all-pennies payment. Having pennies on hand means no longer having to round change up, thus more money for the store.

Stores are welcome to ignore the Currency Act, the rule regarding coins in there simply means that if you want to pay a debt with more than 25 pennies (or whatever denomination you're not allowed to use) and the creditor refuses payment, you can't claim that you attempted payment with legal tender currency and that the debt should be discharged as payment refused. If, say, your car dealership wants to let you buy a car in pennies, there's nothing illegal with him doing so.

U.S. too?

[DarthBling]

According to this link, the U.S. is going to stop producing pennies and nickels in 2013.

Though I'm not sure how much faith one can put into this article. I've tried looking for more concrete news about this, but I have yet to turn up anything. Anybody else hear about this?

Re:U.S. too?

[dkleinsc]

Though I'm not sure how much faith one can put into this article.

I would have approximately no faith in that article, because the way that the company who wrote it makes its money is by convincing people to buy precious metals, which means it's in their financial interest to spread stories that create a potentially false impression that US currency is worthless.

Re:U.S. too?

[Chris Mattern]

They kindly provide a link to the "Original Source". It's a dead link, and to a site that doesn't look any more trustworthy than theirs.

It's all about zinc

[Animats]

The US has pennies only because of lobbying from the zinc industry. The U.S. Mint pays $0.011 for a penny blank.

Re:It's all about zinc

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this group seems like they're some serious hard hitters. The AARP and NRA ain't got nothing on them. Even that default Joomla tab icon screams that this is a lobby group that you just don't want to cross.

Re:It's all about zinc

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb reason to not make pennies. Pennies have a function and they last a long time. Their worth is irrelevant since the U.S. no longer on the gold standard. SO the question shouldn't be is it worth making a 1 cent coin at a cost of 11 cents, the question is do you get 11 cents (it's really 2.41 cents according to the U.S. Mint) worth of use out of it? After all, it costs government a little more than nickel to print a $1 bill and it doesn't last nearly as long as a penny. Additionally, it doesn't affect the value of a dollar It's still a dollar (worth 10 dimes which cost 5.6 cents to produce).

I like pennies, and I like not paying more than I have to.

Re:It's all about zinc

[Fusselwurm]

I thought that was satirical...but it seems to be real.

Wow.

Always someone to 1-up the stupidity thats in circulation.

Re:It's all about zinc

[lourd_baltimore]

Rotten zinc lobby. Sometimes I think we'd all be better in a World Without Zinc...

Re:Advertised price 9.98 = 10.00

[ZombieBraintrust]

Bad math in first post.
9.95 == 9.95
9.96 == 9.95
9.97 == 9.95
9.98 == 10.00
9.99 == 10.00
10.00 == 10.00

They should have dropped nickels as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Nickels also cost more than their face value to produce iirc.
And it just makes sense to have the smallest denomination, the dime, be the smallest coin physically.

Death to Pennies

[Daetrin]

I think the more important question, brought to my mind by the Death to Pennies video, is whether they'll round in all cases or just when paying with cash. There's obviously no need to round if you're using a debit or credit card.

The video makes the very informative point that when you're fiddling around with actual physical pennies at the register you're wasting not only your own time, but the time of everyone in line behind you. The difference of plus or minus a couple pennies literally isn't worth the time spent dealing with them for most people, even without counting the accumulated time you're costing everyone else. I believe it was estimated that the lost opportunity cost was at _least_ an order of magnitude larger than the loss from minting the pennies.

Which means that even if stores _always_ rounded up (which they're not actually doing) you'd _still_ come out ahead in the long run just from the time you saved.

Ah inflation

[hsmith]

Making savings absolutely worthless for hundreds of years. The fact pennies are disappearing should cause concern - your money is worthless.

Re:Ah inflation

[i kan reed]

I'm fairly sure people will be able to convert their pennies to dollars if they have anything approximating a useful amount.

Re:Ah inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, it is, or at least your cash is. that's why you should stop using cash whenever possible - it's a free loan to the fed. i don't use it at all these days.

Re:Ah inflation

[KiloByte]

Money printing is nothing but a tax, that even worse, skirts whatever constitutional/etc rules countries have on taxes. However, most of the gains from this tax go to banks (ie, are lost to the society) rather than the central budget (where they could feed, among waste, some actually useful things).

Going back to the gold standard would fix the former, but as long as fractional reserve banking is legal, won't fix the latter (and thus would be mostly useless). And since financial responsibility would limit abuses of both the government and the Wall Street, neither is not going to happen.

Rounding Messes Up Accounting

[PastTense]

Right now a cashier takes his/her cash box to accounting which verifies the amount of money in the cash box is identical to the cash register tape. This will mess this up (although the newer machines with programming may be able to be re-programmed to calculate this correctly--anyone know?)

Re:Rounding Messes Up Accounting

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh if ONLY this kind of thing (abolishing the 1 cent coin and rounding transactions to the nearest 5 cents) has been done before - if we are unable to figure it out ourselves! And even if there were... how can we ever find out? If only there were some way of searching the internet for this kind of information...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_debate_in_the_United_States#Precedents_in_other_countries

Re:Rounding Messes Up Accounting

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Tills NEVER BALANCE. When I worked at a McJob 10 years ago at a grocery store reports from the till balancing for all employees were posted. +-$5 was common. It was very very very very rare for a till to balance to $0. I remember it happening once. $20 was the point you were "spoken" to.

I blame home rolled coins. They can probably be out +-2 coins. Open a roll of each over your shift and you can be out $6.82!

In theory everything should balance out, but worst case retailers may have to open up tolerances on out of balance tills.

Re:Rounding Messes Up Accounting

[green1]

most tills already have a "cash" vs "credit" button of some form to indicate how the customer paid. Why not just program the "cash" button to do the rounding automatically and then your tills still balance just as well as they ever did (which as you pointed out, isn't all that well, but this shouldn't have to change it any)

Wish the US would do this

[OzPeter]

I hate pennies .. they are evil and need to be banished from the earth. But Americans would scream blue murder if the gubmint tried to take their precious away.

But the funny/bizarre thing is that the US public has already been conditioned to rounding the bill through the use of the give/take-a-penny trays in innumerable stores across the country.

Re:Wish the US would do this

[MickyTheIdiot]

This reminds me of what happened when the $5 and over denominations were redesigned a few years ago. Tom Selleck, who turns out to be another crazy right-wing bastard, was interviewed and complained that our currency was now "funny money." No it's not... it was just redesigned, you prick.

Yeah... you'd see a lot of the same idiocy getting rid of the penny and it would all be complaints about how change (no pun intended) is bad.

Re:Wish the US would do this

[Anonymous Coward]

What's even worse than a US penny in the US is receiving a Canada penny as change in the US. I wish Canada would also drop the nickel and quarter.

Re:Wish the US would do this

[Anonymous Coward]

The large purple numbers do in fact make it look like funny money. So much for GREENBACKS.

Re:Wish the US would do this

[Anonymous Coward]

they would? i'm american and i'd LOVE to see the penny go away. in fact, i'd love to see ALL cash go away. it's an outdated form of currency that does us more harm than good.

and i know plenty of americans who agree with me, hell, if you ask random people on the street i bet you'd find more who don't want pennies than those who do.

quit generalizing so much, especially when you don't really know what you're talking about.

Re:Wish the US would do this

[operagost]

I can't find any citation of this, but I'm pretty sure he didn't like how they looked. I don't think that disliking the appearance of our money makes one a "right-wing bastard" or a "prick". However, extrapolating all kinds of baby-eating hyperbole against your straw-man opponents does make you a prick.

Re:Wish the US would do this

[PhxBlue]

I hate pennies .. they are evil and need to be banished from the earth. But Americans would scream blue murder if the gubmint tried to take their precious away.

Just tell them the pennies will be melted down to make ammunition for troops in Afghanistan. Problem solved!

Re:Wish the US would do this

[quacking duck]

Not to mention the irrational resistance to dollar coins in the US. Canada not only introduced $1 and later $2 coins, they did the sane thing and stopped making $1 and $2 bills.

Between this and the refusal to use metric, I swear, if it weren't for the fact lots of modern technology comes out of the USA I'd mistake it for a regressive country resistant to any and all positive change.

Re:Wish the US would do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting point of view you have here.
YOU don't like something, so then everyone one else who doesn't mind or doesn't care must also follow YOUR chosen life path, otherwise they are some sick, twisted entity. think very highly of yourself, much???

And your second statement...."people have been conditioned to round"....based on what? a VOLUNTARY way of helping their fellow man? Instead of VOLUNTARY, now you want to make it MANDATORY, and instead of helping our fellow man, now it either goes into the business or the .gov.

I have never before met an individual who takes the WORST of both political parties as his ideals.
1) You're Republican because you want everyone else to live your lifestyle
2) You're Democrat because you WANT everyone to pay, rather than leaving it up to them to give the extra $$

Please...for the good of mankind....just fall off the Earth. you won't be missed, and I guarantee it will improve the gene pool.

Re:Copper prices

[SevenTowers]

India and China don't even total 3 billion people together.

Re:Copper prices

[Anonymous Coward]

BUT I HAVE A COUPON!!

Re:Copper prices

[alexander_686]

It depends on what is causing the low inflation.

In America, right now, we have a huge overhang in housing, bad debt, and underemployed people. Because of low prices these things have been pulled from the market – but when prices go up these things pop back on the market driving prices back down. So, if you are trying to sell your house or your labor (or even trying to get a raise) it’s tough.

Japan has been struggling with this for a better part of a decade now. The Fed, via QE, has been dumping massive amounts of currency (which is not the same thing as money) into the market should be causing inflation – but the overhang is absorbing it all.

While low inflation is a good thing today it indicating a anemic economy that is below it’s capacity.

Re:Copper prices

[TooMuchToDo]

Correct! It's closer to 2.5 billion combined.

The real reason for cash vs. credit pricing...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not because of the costs associated with credit. Those were always a problem.

The change is some legislation enacted under Obama that makes it illegal for credit card companies to require merchants to charge the same price for both cash and credit purchases. Previously, stores would lose their ability to process credit cards at all if they added the credit fees into the price. That's no longer the case, which is why you're now seeing this change.

you can pay off your mortgage with pennies...

[Anonymous Coward]

A Milford, Mass., man saved his pennies to pay off his mortgage--literally. He carted more than 62,000 pennies to the bank to make his last payment..

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/mass-man-pays-off-mortgage-pennies/story?id=16726959#.UOXt0m_aJ8E

Re:you can pay off your mortgage with pennies...

[compro01]

That won't work in Canada unless the bank teller/manager has a sense of humour. The currency act states that the penny is only valid for payments up to and including 25 cents (and similar limits apply to all coins).

If you try to use more than 25 pennies, they are legally able to tell you to (politely) get lost and come back with your payment in sensible denominations.

Re:you can pay off your mortgage with pennies...

[petermgreen]

It probably comes down to the individual bank, from what i've read here in the UK some banks are happy to deal with large quantities of coinage (provided it's properly presented*) while others are not so happy about it. Apparently some banks will even exchange coins for banknotes for people who aren't their customer.

Legal tender only defines what a creditor must accept which is usually a subset of what they will accept.

*Here in the Uk we bag coins, I believe Americans roll theirs.

Re:you can pay off your mortgage with pennies...

[compro01]

That's why I said "has a sense of humour". There's not much other reason someone would make their final payment in the form of over 300 pounds of pennies other than the amusement factor (It's rather unlikely that someone would just happen to have that many pennies just lying around) and the law gives them the discretion whether they want to humour him or not.

Re:you can pay off your mortgage with pennies...

[green1]

The key here may be that it's a bank.
While stores don't have to take large amounts of coin, I believe banks do (otherwise there'd be no way to get rid of your large stockpile of coin) (though I believe the bank can force you to roll them yourself)

Sure you might not be able to make a mortgage payment with it, but I think they'd have to let you deposit it, and then you could make the payment from your account right away, so net result is the same.

We're switching to the American Penny instead

[Anonymous Coward]

You all know what's going to happen, right?
Right now pretty much everybody in Canada uses Canadian and American coins indiscriminately.
(Urban legend around here has it that Americans are much more anal about using Canadian coins)
When the supply of Canadian pennies dries up we will just continue to use American pennies and let the
Americans pay the manufacturing costs.

Thanks, Yanks!

Re:Copper prices

[skade88]

Ok then, do you want to make the case for me that 2.5 billion people going from poor to middle class will not use more resources, including copper?

Rounding has taken place for YEARS...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Ontario, there's a 13% sales tax. You buy something for $1.25.
1.25*1.13 == 1.4125. Whoops, a quarter cent. So it gets rounded down to $1,4.
If the price is $1.29, you get 1.39*1.13 == 1.4577. So it rounds up to $1.46.

We've always been rounding off halfassed amounts. We're just upping the concept of where "halfassed amount" lies.

Look, other countries have been through this for centuries. UK got rid of their farthing and then the haypenny when they became useless (and later switched to decimalization but that another story).

to stop? It's already stopped.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Canadian Mint stopped producing pennies early in 2012 (may 4th I believe). In 2013, the government will stop distributing pennies, which will start to reduce the number in circulation.

Re:Will cost 1 billion to bring out of circulation

[Anonymous Coward]

It will save a few million this year, and more next year and Ad infinitum. At some point the penny has to come out of circulation and it will not get any cheaper if you wait. If now is not a good time to remove the penny, then when is a preferable time for the penny to make its exit?

The USA should accept reality too

[jjo]

The penny is just as pointless in the USA as it is in Canada. Of course, the USA is considerably behind Canada in recognizing the changes wrought by inflation. In addition to abolishing the penny, it should abolish the dollar bill and introduce a $2 coin as Canada did many years ago. (If you wanted to be really far-sighted, you could establish a plan for when to abolish the nickel and the $5 bill and introduce a $5 coin.)

Unfortunately, currency reform would not only face stiff opposition from the zinc lobby (because penny is largely zinc now), but from the politically well-connected Crane Company in Massachusetts, which manufactures all of the paper used in printing US currency. The absurdity of vending machines and tollbooths needing to accept paper money (much more expensive than coins) counts for nothing as against a corporation with skilled lobbyists.

Re:The USA should accept reality too

[kehren77]

But what will happen to all of those "Take a penny, Leave a penny" containers?

Re:The USA should accept reality too

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope tollbooths accept dollars! I'd hate to have to pay the $13.00 to cross the bridge into NYC in coins...
(I hate having to pay it in bills too)

Re:The USA should accept reality too

[quacking duck]

Unfortunately, currency reform would not only face stiff opposition from the zinc lobby (because penny is largely zinc now), but from the politically well-connected Crane Company in Massachusetts, which manufactures all of the paper used in printing US currency. The absurdity of vending machines and tollbooths needing to accept paper money (much more expensive than coins) counts for nothing as against a corporation with skilled lobbyists.

+1. I saw the stupidest thing on the double-decker public buses in Vegas where they had to accept paper bills too, and the damn things took 2 seconds per $1 bill to suck it in, pause, slip it partway back out, and suck it all the way in the second time (assuming it didn't jam or something and the rider had to remove and re-insert the whole damn bill). This idiocy took minutes at several busy stops. On top of the heavy traffic along the strip, on the way back we decided to just walk. We actually did beat the bus back to our hotel.

Re:The USA should accept reality too

[green1]

take a dime, leave a dime?

Re:The USA should accept reality too

[Mabhatter]

That's a good case for a $5 coin because bills don't hold up to the handling.

Somebody on YouTube mentioned we should go to dimes, half dollars, dollars, two dollars and five dollars. Quarters get the axe because we would round to 10 cents. That could even be phased in by dropping pennies first, but rounding to dimes and giving a few years for quarters and nickels to work out of the system. The main thing is that they would need to put out new coins FIRST so replacing vending machines can happen all at once. Then just stop minting them and wait until the public runs out.

Video of the last penny!

[Anonymous Coward]

I come from the future with a video showing the minting of the very last Canadian Penny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbaJthvG-O8

Ignore the fact that the last penny was actually made on May 4, 2012 - us future people are just messing with you, we think it's hilarious.

IMO, this is a bad idea

[Cro Magnon]

But that's just my 2 cents.

Re:IMO, this is a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That rounds down to $0.00 if you are dealing with cash.

Re:IMO, this is a bad idea

[Hamsterdan]

Undoing mod mistake.

Re:IMO, this is a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon your 2 cents won't matter... It'll be rounded down to 0. That's just my 5 cents.

Re:Copper prices

[TooMuchToDo]

I was correcting the statistic, not your assertion.

I agree that there are only so many resources to go around; consequently, prices will change based on the demand and availability of those resources until they reach an equilibrium. If there isn't enough copper *at all*, people will need to make due either without or with a substitute (or expensive reserves in the ground will be more appealing to dig up).

Re:Will cost 1 billion to bring out of circulation

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

You are an idiot!
Next time know what you are talking about before you start typing.
From the Canadian mint website. The cost to phase out the penny is 37M, with as saving of 11M a year.
In only 4 years there is a profit.

Why stop with the penny?

[ErinL]

Why not stop production of the nickel as well? Getting rid on one decimal point seems like would be easier. After a short time people would probably forget about that the second decimal point. And you would save the cost of producing the nickel as well.

Bring back the 1/2 Cent!

[IgnacioB]

Canadians want to do with the penny? This is yet another example of a government caving to the tyranny of inflated pocket change. And I'm sure the U.S. will be the next domino to fall. We know puppet autocrats in Washington have been in league with the evil Cabal of Paper Money (see their eye on top of the pyramid on a $1 bill) for centuries and shadow organization called "Amex" is trying to do away with decimals altogether. Living life in integers only is a planned conspiracy to strip God-fearing Americans of our copper-plated zinc liberties! If anything our government should begin re-minting what they illegally usurped from us in 1858 with the "retirement" of the half cent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_cent_(United_States_coin) Our founding father, Abraham Lincoln, guaranteed us the penny denomination when his image was first struck in copper and his big house on the obverse....he's rolling over in his grave that he'll only be available to us on paper $5 bills! And this whole crazy notion of rounding to the hugely inflated nickel is just crazy talk. Jefferson used to teach us that if we saved enough Lincolns we could one day have the likeness of him in our pockets...and now he'd be the first increment on the fraction chart? He and his fancy pants are all bunged up in Monticello as we speak saying, "It's called 'penny candy'....not 'nickel candy'!" I say, "Nay!" Unless the government cushions this effrontery by, at the very least, reintroducing the three cent piece (perhaps with Ron Paul as the missing Founding Father on the back)....it will be just just one more case where our out-of-control government is stepping on our necks and depriving us of life, liberty, and useless small change. Demand re-minting of the Half Penny and Three Cent piece NOW! Call your legislator NOW!

Other contries manages just fine without 'pennies'

[WegianWarrior]

Here in Norway we been doing this for years: - The 1 øre and 2 øre coins disappeared in '74 - The 5 øre and 25 øre coins were withdrawn in '84 - The 10 øre coin ended being legal tender in '92 - The 50 øre coin was withdrawn May 1st last year. So while I can still recall putting a 5øre coin in my piggy-bank, there is now no coins circulating that is worth less than 1 Norwegian krone... but you know what? The wast majority of Norwegians pay by card anyhow, and the prices has not changed with the smaller coins going away. If you pay by card, you pay the exact amount. If you pay cash, it is rounded up or down to the nearest coin-value.

For those curious; after the retirement of the 50 øre coin, a purchase of 9.49 kroner is rounded down to 9.00 while a purchase of 9.50 kroner is rounded up to 10.00 - unless you pay by card, in which case you pay the exact sum owed. Off course it helps that the VAT is already added to the price listed - what you see is what you pay, but there is no reason why it shouldn't work equally well in places this isn't done (something which always boggles me when I'm visiting the US btw).

Office Space programmers

[Thunder6ix]

I see nefarious developers for companies with limited oversight pulling an "Office Space" and truncating the remaining pennies rather than rounding up and depositing them into various accounts. I realize that is almost impossible to do without being caught, but I've seen Office Space too many times so that is the first thing that popped into my head...

Re:Will cost 1 billion to bring out of circulation

[w_dragon]

[citation needed]

Canada?

[lexlthr]

Don't you mean North Montana?

Oblig. XKCD

[rogueippacket]

For any of you who are bent out of shape about having things rounded up by a penny or two - it just isn't worth discussing!
http://what-if.xkcd.com/22/

Cost of Change?

[BetaDays]

I wonder how much did it cost for the merchants to change their equipment to do this?

Taxes..

[slashkitty]

Who gets the remainder if it involves taxes? Here something that is $1.00 with 6% sales tax.. rounded to $1.05 Did the taxes just lose 1 cent?

Re:Taxes..

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Who pays when the till is out of balance right now (and they pretty much always are off by several dollars)? I assume taxes will be remitted per the the $0.01 transaction amount ($1.06 in this case), and the $0.01 will be "eaten" by the retailer, though it will average out over thousands of transactions.

Re:Other contries manages just fine without 'penni

[PRMan]

It's because different states and counties have different tax rates but the price of the item is the same nationwide and is used in nationwide advertising.

Re:Other contries manages just fine without 'penni

[WegianWarrior]

Still boggles and confuses me - as I'm sure it would anyone who are used to paying the amount listed. I know for a fact that a fair number of visiting Americans are boggled and confused by the fact that we're not adding a sales tax on top of the price during check-out... but they tend to agree it's convenient to do it our way. YMMV off course.

That's nothing, you should see the US plan.

[JTsyo]

Once we default on the debt/print our way out, we can get rid of everything under $100 bill. Think of how much money we'll save.

"Legal tender"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what you quoted shows that the penny WILL cease to be legal tender. If you have a choice as to whether to accept something as payment, that is by definition no longer legal tender.

Re:"Legal tender"

[petermgreen]

If you have a choice as to whether to accept something as payment for a debt, that is by definition no longer legal tender.

AIUI generaly cash transactions in a store do not involve a debt to the store and therefore legal tender is not directly relevant.

Re:"Legal tender"

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent said "businesses". So references to invitation to bargain miss the point- if a restaurant serves you a meal and can refuse pennies at the end, they're not legal tender.

Re:"Legal tender"

[JonMartin]

Pennies are only legal tender in amounts no greater than 25 cents. So a restaurant can refuse to accept 2025 pennies in payment for a $20.25 meal without absolving you of your debt. But if you give them a twenty and 25 pennies they can't hold out for a twenty and a quarter.

Re:"Legal tender"

[JonMartin]

If you have a choice as to whether to accept something as payment for a debt, that is by definition no longer legal tender.
AIUI generaly cash transactions in a store do not involve a debt to the store and therefore legal tender is not directly relevant.

Yes, exactly. You must take possession, or consume, a good or service before paying to incur a debt, and only then does the distinction of legal tender come into play.

Say you are buying a sandwich at some place like Subway. You don't take possession of the goods until after you have handed over your money (even though you might be holding it in your hands), so there is never any debt, so they are free to refuse $100 bills (which a lot of shops did before the 100 was updated to the 2001 "Canadian Journey" series).

Now in a restaurant where you sit down and eat before paying, there a debt is incurred, and they cannot refuse legal tender without absolving you of your debt. Note however that the law does not obligate them to make change!

Australia did this years ago.

[godel_56]

Australia got rid of 1 cent and 2 cent coins, and 5 cent coins are looking endangered. Nobody cares.

Retailers round the final total at the till, not the individual item prices, so unless you're just buying just one item your bill is just as likely to go down as up.(by a whole 2 cents maximum). Electronic transactions are not rounded.

We also replaced one dollar and two dollar notes with coins, again with no dramas.

Pennies are bad

[Krokus]

C.G.P. Grey explains why here.

He also explains the penny death process in Canada here.

Rounding prices

[Attila the Bun]

Sensible merchants would just use divisible-by-5 prices to avoid issues with rounding.

This doesn't always work. A common example where it doesn't work is grocery stores where certain items are sold by weight.

Prices are always rounded, whether it's to the nearest cent or to the nearest five cents. Sometimes you win a tiny bit, and sometimes you lose a tiny bit. On average it makes no difference, so long as the rounding unit is smaller than the cost of the item. And not many places keep items priced below 5c.

They laughed at me...

[Anonymous Coward]

when I refused to accept $1's in monopoly.. I hated carrying around the useless bills. I ended up winning too. Perhaps this will spread over to the US as well.

Alternatively I had another (foolish) dream of dividing the nations currency by a factor of 10. Our exchange rate would be multiplied by 10, and then pennies would be once again useful.

Netherlands rid itself of pennies before the Euro

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Netherlands the Dutch Cent was phased out in favor of rounding up or down cash transactions, and it was good riddance.

Then the introduction of the Euro did not only bring the penny coin back.... but also the 2 Cent coin was introduced. *sigh*

$11 mill, Pffftttt...

[IwantToKeepAnon]

Is it worth it? Remember small-ish panic caused by the daylight saving change a few years ago (in the US anyway)? It was a mini-Y2K to make sure your systems were ready ... and some of ours weren't. If your cash registers aren't penny-less ready then you'll never balance your drawers (no childish jokes please :). $11 mill ain't gonna balance the budget and it may cost the business sector more than $11 mill to handle the change (no pun intended).

Is it worth it?

Re:$11 mill, Pffftttt...

[LinuxIsGarbage]

At the work cafeteria they've been rounding for years, and the cash register still shows a price to the $0.01.

When I worked at a grocery store years ago, it was very uncommon for a till to exactly balance. They posted everyone's over/underages, and items per minute, and I never saw a perfectly balanced till. I blame home-rolled change. They could easily be off +-2 coins. Open one of each denomination and you could be off by $6.82! There was a tolerance of $20 before they "spoke" to you. To a certain extent it averages out, though I could see at fast food restaurants (eg: McD or Tim's) where certain item combinations are very popular, and may pull it one way or the other. But in a lot of transactions, Credit or Debit is more popular than cash anyways.

Next step

[Anonymous Coward]

Next step is to force all retailers to include sales tax, environment fees, and any other fee that's not optional, in the advertised price. So when I see something for sale for $20 I know I'm paying $20 at the cash, and not be surprised with a bill for $26.12. And the step after that is to force retailers to use rounded prices, $25 and not $24.99. That last one's a bit tricky, I know.

great idea! NOT!

[slashmydots]

Yeah, make everyone buy new cash registers, retrain employees, and get new software. That'll save a whole bunch of money...for the government.

Re:Other contries manages just fine without 'penni

[Anonymous Coward]

Off course it helps that the VAT is already added to the price listed - what you see is what you pay, but there is no reason why it shouldn't work equally well in places this isn't done (something which always boggles me when I'm visiting the US btw).

I wish they would do this here in Canada as well. Bury the sales tax into the cost of the item and the price you see on the price tag is what you pay at the cash register. No more of this $5.99+tax or $12.98+HST bullshit.

When I was in France they did this and it was nice to see. No more trying to do the math in my head wondering if I have enough to cover the cost of the item and the tax that is added on at the till.

Good Riddance!

[patchouly]

I see a lot of people arguing about the value of the penny. Discussing whether it's worth more than a penny or less than a penny, etc. Truth is, I could care less. All I know is that it is a worthless coin, to a consumer. It is only taking up space in our pockets. Heck, it takes a hundred of them just to make one stinking dollar! No...Good riddance to the penny, I say. I'll gladly pay the (maximum) 4 cents per purchase, to not ever have to deal with a pocket full of useless coins, again (until we set our sights on the nickel, that is).

Exactly

[Kernel Kurtz]

$1 coins go in the car center console, and get used for car washes and parking.

$2 coins go in the tray on the dresser and get used for the morning Tim's.

Personally, if we had $5 coins they would be spent pretty much exactly the same way as $5 bills.

Nickels, dimes, pennies, quarters go in the pail. Once there are a few hundred dollars worth they get returned to the bank.

Pennies? That doesn't make cents.

[WhirledOne]

Pennies..? I didn't know Canada was still using British monetary units. I suppose the sixpence and shilling will be next to go..?

I thought Canada's primary monetary unit was called "dollars" and the secondary unit was "cents". ...Either that, or it's Canadian Tire Money, I forget which.

Note: The U.S. and Canada do not produce pennies at all(unless their mints are producing coins under contract for other countries that use such units). They produce one-cent coins called "cents". The Whitman "Red Book" wouldn't lie to me, would it? A "penny" is a British coin, originally worth 1/12 of a shilling, or 1/240th of a pound sterling. Since Great Britain changed over to a decimal currency, the "new" penny is a much smaller coin and worth 1/100th pound. The use of "penny" in the U.S. and Canada to refer to a one cent coin is technically just a common slang term.

OK, that all seemed a bit picky. But, hey, someone had to point it out...

Just thought I'd put in my two groats' worth.

Petrol stations?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if you go over your fuel amount by 1 penny? Does it round down? Most stations can live or die by penny's on there fuel imagine if everyone that came in was over by 1 penny each transaction that adds up to a lot of cash the station lost.

Canada To Stop Producing Pennies In 2013

[Clived]

About bloody time !

You know we live in a nasty world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of over charging for everything. When you can no longer afford to make money.

A modest proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

US can introduce new coins/bills, each new one worth 5x, or 10x, the previous comparable items. 10x is more forward thinking, so here goes:

New Cent/New Penny = $.10 (sized like a dime)
New Nickel = $.50 (sized like a penny)
New Dime = $1 (sized like a nickel)
New Half Dollar = $5 (sized like a dollar coin)
New Dollar =$10 (sized a little larger than a dollar coin)
New 5 = $50 (first bill, sized like a dollar bill)
New 10 = $100 (second bill, sized longer than a dollar for the blind)

no quarter, and no 20 bill. all items are 1 and 5. no weird math. no dollar bill. If you want to mess with the symmetry, add a New 2 bill worth $20.
of course, vending machine makers wont go for this, too much "change" for them. but once done, its smooth sailing until hyperinflation hits...

Obligatory Steve Wright joke

[ClickOnThis]

How come it's "a penny for your thoughts" but you have to "put your own two cents in"? Somebody's making a penny...

Re:Copper prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it is theft of savings. Unless of course by "low" you mean 0%, which is nowhere near what we have.

Re:Copper prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ, did everyone miss the sarcasm in that post?

The point is that a penny being worthless these days is a symptom of a much bigger problem. That of inflation caused by the banks and government. And once again, they respond by troubleshooting symptoms, in this case by getting rid of the penny instead of bringing value back to it like they should. Typical government reaction. They couldn't fix the root cause of a problem if their lives depended on it. In this case, it would mean admitting that the entire economy is built on an unsustainable model and that the people have been played for suckers. Political suicide. So you'll have to ride this train all the way off the tracks, to the bottom of the ravine instead.

Thanks, assholes.

Re:Copper prices

[green1]

My cost of living increase was 1% over 5 years... the official cost of living index was significantly higher, and even that's been gamed to remove things that have gone up too fast (like fuel, and utilities, which make up a large portion of my costs)

I love corporate math....

Why can't we do this in the UK?

[GauteL]

Even though the British pence is worth more than a US dollar cent, it still is practically worthless. The only decent reason I can see for keeping them around is for charities. I always put my coppers (not really copper any more, I know) in the nearest charity box if I can see one and usually bin them if not.

"But every penny saved...", I hear you say. Well it would require me to save three hundred pennies to gain as much as a solitary pint of beer (approximately £3). The effort in keeping coppers just isn't worth it any more. If I received 5 pennies per day and binned them all, it would cost me £18 per year. On a list of potential savings I could make, this would be in the "noise" category. I probably waste hundreds of pounds per year on not making pre-packed lunches.

The pennies are considered rude to give as tips, so you can't do that and so the only valid reason for me to keep pennies around is to avoid receiving more of them. If you have 2 pence on you and you're purchasing something costing £7.02 you could always give the cashier £10 and 2 pence to avoid receiving more pennies. The problem is that people are so bad at mental arithmetic these days they spend ages trying to figure out why you gave them 2 pence.

I would be delighted if the UK got rid of the coppers. Norway got rid of the equivalent (10 oere and 25 oere) two decades ago and are now getting rid of the approximate equivalent of the 5 pence coin (50 oere). Sentimentality is not a good reason to keep coins around. You probably spend more energy in dealing with these pennies and carrying them around than you get from saving them.

Pennies = sweets?

[dww]

I remember when Italy ran out of small change in the 1970s (I think the coins were worth more than their value as scrap metal, with the obvious result). Shops would give you sweets in place of small change. Seemed to work quite well.

Take a penny, leave a penny

[confuscan]

Many small businesses have effectively "eliminated" pennies with a small container at the cash that contains pennies. Need a few pennies, take them from the container. Received a few pennies in your change? Drop them in the container. I don't think I've had pennies in my pocket for a long time. Government is finally just catching up.

Nickel

[hobarrera]

What's a nickel?
Not all of us live in Canada, and all I've found it to be is an element, an ugly chick, and some ancient coins that vary between $0.03 and $0.05.

Re:Nickel

[compro01]

It's the $0.05 coin. It has a beaver on the reverse side.

Excellently Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

If the metal in the penny was worth more than the penny people would be melting them down, as they did with gold coins. Clearly that is not happening.

Wrong on both counts.

People were actively melting pennies for the copper; illeagal or not.

That's why our pennies are made of coloured steel.