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460 points andrewl | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.244s | 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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1. dragonwriter ◴[] No.45905600[source]
So, lobby for changes to the structure of those taxes so that's not a problem. Tthe simple solution is changing them from surcharges adding a percent onto posted prices to making them a percentage taken out of the posted price; so that coin availability is only an issue in the improbable event that you are paying your sales tax bill in cash.

Of course, retailers don't want tax-inclusive posted prices, but... ::shrug::