Speaking of coins, what do you think of the new cents?

[Duer 157099]

They've been talking for years about getting rid of the cent coin, so why did they bother with a new design?

I was recently looking through my stash of pocket change and found just ONE of the new cents (2009).

I'll bet that a lot of people don't even know about this new coin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_%28United_States_coin%29

[NightWatcher]

1. a waste of time and effort

didnt I hear that it costs more than one cent to make each penny?

[slampoet]

7. Misnomer. Pennies make many times MORE than their face value during their 30 year lifespan.

Pennies are for collecting sales tax. That is their primary function.

No one would be able to collect sales tax accurately on purchases less than $500 without pennies.

While it does cost almost 2 or 3 cents to make a penny the amount of Sales Tax Revenue they make it possible to collect is easily Hundreds if not thousands of times their issued face value. Also pennies stay in circulation for 30-55 years so they wear out very slowly.

Pennies are wonderful investment for the government. Anyone who thinks differently is being short sighted. That is also one of the hidden meanings behinds the saying "Penny Wise, pound Foolish."

[Statistical]

10. What? You just round to nearest nickle.

There won't be a significant difference is sales tax revenue if penny disappeared.

[slampoet]

18. "There won't be a significant difference is sales tax revenue if penny disappeared."

Wow, you just failed the Math and Verbal portion in one sentence.

[Statistical]

22. Why would sales tax revenue change?

Despite your receipts showing tax on each sale that isn't how businesses remit sales taxes.

A 7-11 store that sells $420,389.28 worth of goods in a month doesn't calculate the sales tax on each transaction and then sum all those up and them provide a ledger to the state with every $2.89 sale (with $0.14 going to the state).

Now 7-11 files a monthly retail sales document with $420,389.28 listed as gross sales. It then calculates 5% of that which is $21,019.46 and cuts a check to state for sale taxes.


Without pennies the price of goods + tax would simply be rounded to nearest nickle.
Then at end of the month 7-11 would do the exact same thing and cut single check to state.

The idea that without pennies states can't collect sales tax is idiotic.
The only way that would make sense is if 7-11 put aside the $0.14 (on $2.89 sale) into a bucket marked "states $$$$" and then handed over a giant bucket of change each day to the state.

[Journeyman]

14. Thank you for this post. . .

Anytime someone tells me we should get rid of the penny my first response is to ask why they insist on paying sales tax in 5 cent increments.

I like your comment as well, that pennies pay for themselves thousands of times over in their ability to make sales tax more easy to collect. I hadn't thought of that aspect before.

[Statistical]

24. If you round to every nickle in the long run it is exactly the same.

Shit is basic math skills in this country that bad?

We round to nearest penny now.

$2.84 + 5% = $0.144 in taxes. Did you every cut a penny into 10 pieces and pay 4/10ths of a penny?

[Journeyman]

26. And the next time a legislature proposes increases in taxes, will it be by pennies or nickels? . . .

When they round up for every increase, since there are no pennies to account for, don't you believe you'll pay more.

Shit, are basic logic skills in this country that bad?

[Statistical]

27. What? Taxes aren't proposed in pennies or nickles Taxes are percentages.

We don't round up now. We round to nearest penny. You know elementary school math

$0.114 rounds to $0.11
$0.088 rounds to $0.09

They wouldn't round up for nickles they would just round to nearest nickle.

$0.114 rounds to $0.10
$0.088 rounds to $0.10

[aikoaiko]

21. With rounding up and down, wouldn't he businesses be able to collect the taxes and pay in lump sums?

:shrug:

[SPedigrees]

2. I liked the old wheat pennies. The design has gone steadily downhill.

Moot point though. It's long past time to stop minting pennies.

On edit, count me among those who didn't know about the new pennies.

[ashling]

3. I agree

this change definitely makes no cents :hi:

[liberal N proud]

4. No cents

:rofl:

[Warpy]

6. Right, those old wheat pennies were very attractive

That being said, I like Lincoln better on the new pennies. If they'd only bring the wheat back, they'd have a good design.

[SPedigrees]

31. Of course the wheat design dates back to an era when we actually grew wheat.

Now we import most of it from China. I suppose, as pretty as it was, it's obsolete.

[slampoet]

8. How do you collect sales tax without pennies? See my post above.

PS- i would love to see the old wheat cents or Indian head pennies make a comeback too.

[Statistical]

12. This doesn't even make sense. You collect sales like you do now.

5% sales tax. Store sells something for $0.99.

Technically the tax should be 4.95 cents. Stores register rounds to nearest penny = 5 cents and you pay $1.04.


Without pennies store rounds to nearest nickle. So it would be $1.05. If you buy something that would be $1.07 you will pay $1.05. Simply round to nearest $0.05.

In long run the amount store collects is the same. Store submits gross sales receipts to state and remits 5% as sales tax revenue.

Stores currently round to nearest whole penny. Only change would be rounding to nearest $0.05 instead.

[slampoet]

19. So you are on the record for making sales tax MORE REGRESSIVE?

Not very Democratic and at the same time it does more damage than continuing to mint pennies.

The cost benefit is the reason they are still making pennies.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Duer 157099]

5. Check out these numbers

These are the figures for the 2009 special Lincoln bicentennial cents. The 2009-P Presidency cent has a relatively low mintage. They were still avail from the US mint when I checked a few weeks ago.

http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14923&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=35238

Year/ Mint Mark Circulation Strikes Proof Strikes

2009 P Kentucky Childhood (Log Cabin) 284,800,000 0
2009 D Kentucky Childhood (Log Cabin) 350,000,000 0
2009 S Kentucky Childhood (Log Cabin) 0
2009 P Indiana (Formative) Years 376,000,000 0
2009 D Indiana (Formative) Years 363,600,000 0
2009 S Indiana (Formative) Years 0
2009 P Professional Life in Illinois 316,000,000 0
2009 D Professional Life in Illinois 336,000,000 0
2009 S Professional Life in Illinois 0
2009 P Presidency 129,600,000 0
2009 D Presidency 198,000,000 0
2009 S Presidency 0

edit to add link

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. Time for the Roosevelt dime to get a makeover, too.

That thing was ugly from day 1.

[roamer65]

30. The Roosie dime is just fine.

Leave it alone.

The design I hate is the new profile of Jefferson on the 5 cent piece. Felix Schlag's old profile of Jefferson was light years better.

[SPedigrees]

32. Amen to that. I remember there was once an appalling suggestion

to replace FDR with Reagan. I made a promise to deface every Reagan dime that came into my possession.

[annabanana]

11. I like that the reverse has "E Pluribus Unum" on it... Not that

crazy about the reverse design though. It seems an oversimplified sheild... Like a REAL sheild after a committee got to it.

[RedRocco]

16. I think all the new designs look more like tokens than coins

[Bluebear]

13. Looks like some NCAA souvenir or something

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. UGLY! (looks like something from a 1930s comic book)

[Confusious]

17. Don't like the reverse. n/t

[aikoaiko]

20. "it cost the U.S. Mint 1.7 cents to make a penny, 70% more than the value of the coin"

from wiki.

That's crazy. We should get rid of the penny.

[Statistical]

25. No. Cause according to some it is impossible to round to a nickle.

Despite the fact that we round to nearest penny everyday some people think sales tax system will utterly collapse if we round to nearest nickle at the point of sale. There is some magical property in the penny which allows rounding. Maybe it is the highly toxic zinc? Good for sickening small children and killing dogs.

[HopeHoops]

28. The fuckers STILL cost about 2 cents each to make! Stop minting them.

Australia got rid of pennies something like 20 years ago (maybe longer). Rounding to the nearest nickle balances out over time. They have become a waste of time.

[roamer65]

29. Australia rounds everything to the nearest 5c...

and they got rid of their 1c and 2c coins years ago. They get along with it just fine.