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334 points andrewl | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.489s | source
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Amorymeltzer ◴[] No.45903482[source]
Some interesting complications with rounding I had not heard about before were mentioned here, worth noting I think, especially given the prominence of SNAP in the news lately:

>Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).

>In addition, the law covering the federal food assistance program known as SNAP requires that recipients not be charged more than other customers. Since SNAP recipients use a debit card that’s charged the precise amount, if merchants round down prices for cash purchases, they could be opening themselves to legal problems and fines, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for NACS.

>“Rounding down on all transactions presents several challenges beyond the loss of an average of 2 cents per transaction,” Lenard said. “We desperately need legislation that allows rounding so retailers can make change for these customers.”

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nofriend ◴[] No.45903663[source]
just make the price a multiple of five cents
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mattnewton ◴[] No.45903695[source]
State and local taxes make this infeasible
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saalweachter ◴[] No.45903774[source]
Retailers don't, like, have to add sales tax on top of listed prices.

They just have to pay it.

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1. syntheticnature ◴[] No.45903902[source]
No, it's illegal in many, looks like most states:

https://www.avalara.com/blog/en/north-america/2019/07/retail...

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2. cestith ◴[] No.45904419[source]
IIRC, in New York it’s illegal to absorb sales tax on individual items because by law it’s a consumer tax collected by the business and explicitly not a tax on the business itself, but - and it’s a pretty big exception - anything sold as a bulk good can include the tax in the price. That includes things like liquid fuels, grains or candy by the scoop in the supermarket, loose sand/gravel/salt/whatever for outdoor use, and things like that. It’s been a long while since I had to set up an ecommerce site for New York though.