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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

(www.cnn.com)
334 points andrewl | 3 comments | 12 Nov 25 16:10 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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didgetmaster ◴[12 Nov 25 16:40 UTC] No.45902279[source]▶
Many are reporting this as if failing to mint new pennies each year is going to produce some kind of shortage. There are billions of pennies sitting in drawers or jars in homes across the nation (I certainly have one with about a thousand pennies in it).

I doubt anyone who needs a penny will be unable to find one within the next 100 years.

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JohnFen ◴[12 Nov 25 16:46 UTC] No.45902363[source]▶
Most of the stores in my area have started requiring people to pay with exact change or by card because they can't get pennies to make change.

Personally, I think stores should just start setting prices to avoid the need for pennies, but that would be too easy, I guess.

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ianferrel ◴[12 Nov 25 16:57 UTC] No.45902534[source]▶
Setting prices to avoid the need for pennies is probably technically challenging given the combination of requirements to post prices and sales taxes that don't always round the same way.

If the effective tax rate is 7.432%, you can price single items so that the price plus tax ends up in a multiple of $0.05, but if you get a purchase with multiple items, you either need to round somewhere or post prices that are like $9.346263437.

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thayne ◴[12 Nov 25 17:02 UTC] No.45902603[source]▶
sales tax should be charged per item, not for the total transaction, so that it's possible to list prices that include the sales tax.
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1. MrZander ◴[12 Nov 25 18:01 UTC] No.45903425[source]▶
Sales tax varies by state/county/city. It is generally not cost-effective to have each individual store label all their products with local sales taxes applied.
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2. ryandrake ◴[12 Nov 25 18:30 UTC] No.45903913[source]▶
I see this excuse all the time, but why not? This calculation does not need to happen more often than the product prices are adjusted. There's no difference in effort between labeling something "$5.52+tax" and labeling it "$6".
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3. MrZander ◴[12 Nov 25 18:38 UTC] No.45904029[source]▶
The difference is where the product is labeled. Is it labeled nationally like Arizona Iced Tea? Is it labeled at a regional bottling facility? Or is it labeled at the store itself? And what about when tax rates change, you gonna go pull all the labels off everything in the whole store and update them?

Most of this could be resolved by not putting the prices on the products themselves, but that isn't as good of an experience for the shopper.