President Donald Trump says he has directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, citing the rising cost of producing the one-cent coin.
I don’t think he can. If he somehow illegally forces the US Mint to stop making pennies, it doesn’t solve the problem that no law allows stores to just round to the nearest 5 cents. Congress would need to pass that first.
Isn’t this largely on stores to change their prices? It’s not like they’d still be selling things at $0.99 and charging you $1.00, they’d just change their advertised prices to be rounded up to the nearest $0.05.
That said, you’re probably right in that he can’t just do it.
Say there is a tax of x and someone purchases both a and b.
The total would be:
total = x * (a + b)
= x * a + x * b
As long as all items result in an amount that doesn’t have to be rounded if purchased individually then the combined amount will not have to be rounded either.
When you do %'s on totals you’ll get something like $11.553
Which is fine for a single item, they’ll round that down to $11.55 but when you start combining them, you’re off. You don’t round individual items or you can be off by a lot, you round the final one (edit: or maybe they truncate it I don’t know).
I assumed that the tax would result in whole numbers but upon further inspection (i.e. trying it out it in a calculator) it turns out that few prices would result in values that don’t have overhanging millidollars.
The solution is obviously to force prices to be whole dollar and to further allow sale taxes only in increments of 5%.
I don’t think he can. If he somehow illegally forces the US Mint to stop making pennies, it doesn’t solve the problem that no law allows stores to just round to the nearest 5 cents. Congress would need to pass that first.
Isn’t this largely on stores to change their prices? It’s not like they’d still be selling things at $0.99 and charging you $1.00, they’d just change their advertised prices to be rounded up to the nearest $0.05.
That said, you’re probably right in that he can’t just do it.
With taxes it can be unpredictable as you add multiple items together.
In Canada they passed a law around rounding when they did this so it’s clear set rules.
Edit: they also took them out of circulation. They didn’t just stop minting them.
No?
Say there is a tax of x and someone purchases both a and b.
The total would be:
As long as all items result in an amount that doesn’t have to be rounded if purchased individually then the combined amount will not have to be rounded either.
When you do %'s on totals you’ll get something like $11.553
Which is fine for a single item, they’ll round that down to $11.55 but when you start combining them, you’re off. You don’t round individual items or you can be off by a lot, you round the final one (edit: or maybe they truncate it I don’t know).
Ah, we’re both right.
I assumed that the tax would result in whole numbers but upon further inspection (i.e. trying it out it in a calculator) it turns out that few prices would result in values that don’t have overhanging millidollars.
The solution is obviously to force prices to be whole dollar and to further allow sale taxes only in increments of 5%.
My inner child died a little, knowing there are no 1c candies from my past in your future.