If the government made all items sold to end in zero, pennies would be useless. Right?

There has been a movement to get rid of the penny for a while. You are not alone in wanting rid of them. I think for now I am still on the side of wanting to keep the penny.

I remember some talk a while ago about phasing out the penny (because it costs more than 1 cent to produce a penny) but I don’t know what ever came of that. Does anyone else?

Not being an economic expert I really have no idea what the impact would be, but I feel it would be significant.

As a side note, prices wouldn’t have to end in 0s unless we also tried to eliminate the nickel. They could end in 0s or 5s.

I think calculating taxes so that everything came to a 5 or 0 would be complex.

Here are the arguments for getting rid of the penny.

I am all for simplification and would even don on a cheerleading outfit and relearn how to do a cartwheel to make it so.

There are two challenges that I can see. One is getting over the marketing ploy that people will be drawn to purchase an item that has a price marked at $9.99 vs. $10.00. (This goes for any price a penny below the dollar mark.)

The other is that most states tax the majority, if not all, goods purchased. What is more confusing is that the tax rates vary from state to state. After years of adapting to the US pricing ways, it is weird to go into a shop in England and pay the actual price marked on an item. It is so much easier.

@Pied_Pfeffer My parents every time they are here in Memphis get all tripped up by the total when they buy things. Sales tax is so high my dad almost always winds up saying, “no, that isn’t right,” at a check out line. It was the same for me the first couple of years. It took me a while to get used to it. I try to shop in NY when I am there to avoid the tax. I never used to shop a lot when in NY previously, but with the combination of tax and mediocre shopping here, what can I say. I also shop when I am in FL for the same reasons, but NY is cheaper.

We could still use the penny rolls to throw at rude drivers. I’m running out of old batteries.

Mexico in a lot of stores round up and skip the pennies (centavos).

The practice of selling items for 1.99 instead of $2 etc was started to reduce employee theft. When they have to go into the till to make change for the customer they are more likely to put the money in the till instead of in their pocket.

Australia gave up pennies a long time ago and are now considering getting rid of 5 Cent pieces as well. It saves you carrying them but many things still cost 4.98 or petrol 146.7. If it is 4.98 they round it up to 5 and rarely down also. But when you buy fuel it is still computed on the pump at 1.46.7 but when you pay it is rounded up or down depending on the exact amount.

That would suck. Then taxes would have to be rounded and it would have to be rounded to 10 cents on the dollar. You know they are not going to round down. Taxes is generally set at about 7 cents. So if you bought something for 50 dollars you are now paying 55. Instead of 53.49.
I pay enough taxes. Keep the penny. Now if they were willing to round down. Then I’m willing to listen.

@Pandora Come live with the TN rip-off sales tax of 9.259%. No tax is more regressive than the sales tax. And I would agree with doing away with the penny.

@Pandora and @plethora Come live in Delaware where we have no sales tax at all.

Not really. One penny will be useless but if you put together 5 or 10 of them then they have something of a value.

Pennies add up, man. I’ve been so poor that pennies have saved me from starvation. When you have money, they seem pointless and you don’t mind throwing the extra pennies toward a purchase but when you have no money they can make or break you. If you don’t like carrying them around, save them for 3 months, 6 months or even a year and then donate it to someone or some group. Those suckers add up more than you might think after a while.

I’d be fine with getting rid of them, as long as the ‘rounding’ is done fairly. One less thing to worry about, and the country would save a bit of money by not making them.

As @rooeytoo mentioned, Australia is currently considering phasing out our 5 cent coin, and one and two-cent pieces disappeared long ago. Still, many shops do price goods at funny numbers. Then they round the total to the nearest 5c, unless you pay by card, in which case you just pay whatever the number is. I found pennies so annoying when I travelled to America. At least in Japan the 1 yen pieces can provide some simple amusement by getting them to float on water. I’d advise you guys to get rid of penny coins, since they are so uneconomical to make, and I’ve got to say, they’re pretty ugly.

Oh and while you’re at it, just include taxes in the price of the item. It doesn’t take a lot of maths to put the real price tag on stock. (What can I say? I’m a lazy tourist.)

@iphigeneia I our defense, it is not necessarily an easy thing to figure the tax into an item. Some prices on some items are set by the manufacturer and there are 6 states in the U.S. that have no sales tax at all, and the states that do have sales tax all have different tax rates.

@lillycoyote Ah yes, I hadn’t thought about the differences between the states. I guess it’s not fair to compare the US to the countries that have uniform sales taxes.

I would be in favor of getting rid of pennies. They are pretty much worthless. I think the Australians have the right idea. What you do is phase out all coins as inflation keeps increasing. Eventually, the dollar would be the new penny. Then the government could issue coins for $1, $5, etc.

@LostInParadise – actually in Australia we have $1 and $2 dollar coins. They are gold in color so of course called goldies. For some reason I love them, I guess because in USA to carry $10 in coins would cause my shorts to ride at half mast, here I can carry 5 $2 goldies and my pants don’t sag at all!

A good idea might be to put jars or such things next to the cash machines in supermarkets and gas stations, etc. so that penny disliking people can donate theirs and they would come to the advantage of charity.

@augustlan – If the rounding is done fairly, for who? ;) There’s the rub. Rounding down is fair to the customer, rounding up is fair to the business.

If you buy three things, @laureth , that each cost $1,99, your total will be $5,97, which will be rounded down then (at least, in Holland this is the custom), so to the advantage of the customer.
I guess the advantages for customers and businesses of the rounding up and down are balanced.

If we got rid of pennies, how would little old ladies annoy the hell out of me by counting out 55 cents worth of pennies when paying for things?

@Mariah “I think calculating taxes so that everything came to a 5 or 0 would be complex.”

They wouldn’t have to. Only prices of items paid for in cash would have to be changed. Electronic transfers wouldn’t.

For example Amazon would still be able to sell a book at $6.99 but your local bookshop would have to charge $7.

They would find a way to suck them out of our pockets, I’m sure.

@lillycoyote :( I use to live in Delaware. I miss the whole non tax thing very much.

@laureth I’m thinking of the type of rounding we learned in elementary school. If we got rid of nickels, too, it would be under 5 cents gets rounded down, 5 and over gets rounded up. If we’re just getting rid of pennies, I guess it would be under 3 gets rounded down, 3 and over gets rounded up.