Dollar Coin Alliance Endorses Bipartisan USA Act That Saves Taxpayers At Least $57 Billion

As usual, when you post

We already round most transactions to make up for not having a thousandth of a dollar coin.

Our tax rate here is 6.875%. How do I pay $1.06875 for a $1 item Using pennies? I can't. It gets rounded to $1.07 and I lose .125 cents on each dollar spent. By the time I hit $5-8 I make that money back because it gets rounded down, instead. No big deal, nobody loses anything and nobody gets rich. We just pick the precision we need in rounding prices.

If we only had dimes, I would pay $1.10 instead of 1.07. But on a $2 purchase I would pay $2.10 instead of $2.14. Lose 3 cents one place, make 4 cents another, lose 4 cents, make 3. Repeat 100 times and it's nothing.

Hey guys, there's something I'm a bit confused About this whole thing. Is there even any real evidence that this is something that is going on at this time? Just about The only articles I've seen are ones that DCA has posted links for. Sites that I've never even heard of before I followed the links. A Bing search has resulted in only a few links to cookie cutter style articles and yahoo is coming up blank

The articles seem more like one of those mad lib things where u just have to put in key information and not something that's a real or current news story.

Yes it does to me sense you replied to me, your reply makes sense. :D

I am not going to quote everything since it is just above, and hopefully I don't get post ninja'd while reading, typing and replying.

I think the rounding is wrong because the Us government will take its money and it MUST be collected, that is why gasoline still has the 9/10th cent of a gallon on it, but there is no such money that exists to cover it but you still get rounded up on for it.even when its 81/110th because you got 9 gallons of gas, you are paying 9 full cents it doesn't round down to 8.

Now Canada might be different because it has a different economy that allows to round down, but I really don't know al the details about it, I just hear about college costs, health care system, and taxes being different from the US, maybe you can compare those to see if that might affect things in regards to taxes?

Someone paying cash having to pay 2 extra cents being %8.10 while someone paying with a credit card having only to pay $8.08 would or should be illegal. That is preferential pricing based on bias. Basically it is prejudiced against poor people or those that don't qualify for credit cards. Everyone would have to get rounded the same way, such as there is no Half Cent no checks or credit cards have the amount $0.375 (375/1000) because that type of money is gone, IF the nickel and cent are removed, that decimal place for cent will have to go away for EVERYONE jsut as it did with the half-cent. The government will have to issue and track some form of card that allows those with cash to buy it for fre and use it for money, which then kills all bills and coins, or keep the cash tokens for the decimal place to allow fair pricing to ALL persons, which means keeping the nickel and cent.

If Canada has laws that allow everyone to have a debit or credit card, then good for you, but the US doesn't work that way, and simply put, all heck will break lose when such profiling happens because low-income families would be hit and that would be hispanic and african-american, and that would be, under recent law, a racial crime. Charging one race more than another.. doesn't sound like a very good idea to me.

Sure for numerous item purchases, the rounding would even out more, but not everyone buys groceries for a month at a time because they cannot afford to. College students, who are already pretty SOL with student loans, would get hit buying 1 meal at a time, and the amount would add up fast as they get rounded into being unable to eat from being broke. ANYONE buying a meal at a time for any reason would be hit, and when paying with cash as you mentioned above they would have to pay extra also because they dont have a credit card?

There are plenty of people at grocery stores that buy only 1 item, they need that case of beer, needed a dozen eggs or something another store in the franchise was out of, or who knows what other reason. Not to mention a pack of cigarettes, running in to a store for a drink on a hot day, maybe you need just a bag of ice, maybe you are just at the gas station filling up your propane tank....I think the problem is people assume EVERYONE buys things en masse and single purchases don't happen that often. Those making single purchases are the ones like college stupids that have no place to store food, or their lunch is all-in-one price like a value meal at a resturant, or those low income that buy meal at a time, or only things they need when they need them. Ever needed a new toothbrush? Do you go buy 20 other things when you only need 1 toothbrush? Bought a drink at a gas station after pumping gas for mowing your lawn? the gas doesn't get rounded into the drink cost to figure the tax, you pay tax on the drink alone meaning you get rounded on it.

Maybe Canada everyone has a set day they go shopping for everything, but I have no idea. I jsut know I have seen people buying a months worth of food at a time, a weeks worth, a days worth, or just a meals worth. What I did was figure 1 purchase per day where an increase of 1 cent occurred for everyone in the US at last my knowledge of the populace count was and came up with 1.3832 billion spent per year if everyone just spent 1 extra cent per day.

Like I said, I could throw it back to the loss-leader example and state the US Mint doesn't jsut make pennies, so it shouldn't jsut look at pennies from any point of view. I think I did the math based on 2011 coin costs for the 2014 or 2013 production numbers to figure out how much net profit the Mint made on the face value of coins release. that net profit was greater than 0, it was great than $1 million. The point of making coins isn't to make a profit, but to have an economy period.

Dollar: 18 cents to make
half: unknown
quarter: 11 cent
dime: 6 cents
Nickel: 11 cents
Penny: 2.4 cents

The other coins cover the cost to make the pennies because the Mint still makes more face value that production and material costs that they provide. FACE VALUE, this doesn't count business strikes they sell a roll of Blue Ridge Parkway quarters (FV: $10) for $18.99 + S&H. Nor does it count the overpriced silver called ASE's which cost more than their melt value and unless polished proof they are pretty much the cost to make as a half-dollar I am sure, except for the metal being silver instead of cupro-nickel.

Why is it people look at the penny cost of 2.4 and say that there is such a loss, when the dollar coins is making 81 cent appear out of thin air? Why is this 30 year lifespan coins cost not ammortized over its full predicted lifespan? If coins were properly handled with depreciation and ammortization, 2015 just ended the period of coins made in 1985/1984 and they were already post mostly copper content. So the value of a penny with a lifespan of 30 years, and don't tell me nobody ever sees pennies from 1984 or older anymore, is sread out properly over its life cycle, then 2.4 cents in 2011 to make a penny isn't that much alone. But again, look at the profits made on the Dollar coin, and if it replaces the bills, the the reduced costs of disposing of the $1 bill should more than compensate for the 40 million "loss" to make the 8 billion pennies per year. Not to mention the quarter nets 14 cents profit on face value over cost, the dime 4 cents....

When you look at the whole picture the penny isn't losing money in ALL the coins that are made.

Before anyone mentions that transporting dollar coins will cost a lot more than bills, the US Mint already has distribution channels in place that have worked for decades to release coins, so there is little over the fuel costs and man hours there for people already employed to move these coins around. It isn't like a Wells Fargo fleet will drive up to banks to reclaim the bills and replace them with coins, since the bill will be phased out as its lifespan shortens and they have to be disposed. Then all those people will be fired? They will be disposing of other bills like the 5, 10, etc. So the coins will come out at the same speed quarters do now, the speed of necessity.

Your opinion is welcome, and thanks for answering what and how you could. I just think there are some or many on the side of removing the cent and nickel that are wearing their tin-foil blinders so they don't have to see the other effects that could come from it all. Anyone that doesn't get the tin-foil blinders pun, then substitute rose-tinted glasses there.

Speaking of the cost of the half being unknown, could someone please try to find out how much it does cost to mint a half? I would be very interested, and there has to be a place where it is posted. Speaking on a similar note, I was once told by a bank back in the mid 1990's that, the $2 BILL had about a 34 year life span due to how little the $2 circulates. But lately, even though I don't see $2 bills in circulation, I keep hearing and reading that the demand for the $2 bill is steadily rising, which puzzles me.

I tried to find info form the half and the mint once told me on the phone it was twice the cost of the quarter, but that can't be correct, that would just be material costs and would mean all costs listed are material costs and not production costs, because it would take half as many dies to make a half, the thicker stock wouldnt exactly cost twice the quarter stock even though the end product is about double the weight of the quarter, but not double ti diameter or thickness...




The dollar coin was NIFC at that time except for the Pre$ for that year, then in 2013 it went NIFC again due to not much circulation, but IF the entire bill passes, the coin would replace the bill as the bills are phased out, so the dollar coin usage would increase slowly over time until the dollar bills wear out.

Fox: the $2 bill lifespan is being humoursly extended, but the BEP listed about 18 month the last time I checked and found the lifespan of ANY bill they print. sure anecdotes exist at how few are used and superstitions as to why some places TRY to refuse to take them...but its just another bill there with the 5 and 1, jsut has no space in a cash drawer....

n9: we arent just talking about the cent but an entire decimal place, which brings back to Joseph.. yeah the quarter is the sore thumb sticking out in all this because what is it supposed to be used for? why have the 5 cents there, but no nickel?

so n9, please show how you arrive at half the sales will round down? I have never once had any sales tax round down. I check every receipt and they always round up if any portion of a penny is present. Maybe you just live in a lucky area that does that.

Now to your math Joseph, I am not sure what you have there, which is cost, face value etc, but I dont see where rolls and bags of business strikes sold from the mint figure in, nor have I ever seen any number for those except a $10 face value of quarters sells for 18.95 + S&H. currently only S mint mark available as single rolls, but a PD set of 2 roll (1 each) with face value $20 sells for 32.95 + S&H. That is $13 over face for the same 2 rolls you could get form the bank if you are lucky enough to get a whole roll because they are the same strikes that would be in the mintage number for 2015. That means every year they have sold a portion of the mintage over face in roll, not counting special sets that use the business strikes, or bags that use the business strikes. That is for ALL coins, not just the quarter or the penny, but they are surely selling coins for over face value to people and that is unknown profit we can't use in our calculations. Does the sell of rolls, special sets, bags of coins, not bring in money for the Mint? Like the cost of making a half dollar, there are too many unknowns to say they are at a loss, and from the amounts it would seem they sell through the Mint's online store, they aren't losing anything.

Also while the dollar coins arent used in place of the bills by everyone, many places have already switched to them like carwashes instead of using so many quarters, as well laundromats, and other odd "vending" services like that. I thought it funny the first time I went to the car wash put a dollar bill in the "change" machine thinking it was going to give out a token and it gave a $1 coin that you then took to the stall to insert to wash your car.

So 2011 dollar coins were minted and it does incur a cost in your calculations and they too were sold through the Mint store in rolls at least.

I cant figure out how quarters and dimes incurred a loss either when a quarter costs 11 cents to make, so each quarter gets 14 cents profit. that means the net gain is larger than the cost of the quarter? But as you said, math at night could have been the cause there. Unless by loss in each line you mean cost to make that coin type. quarters in 2011 for the mintage number of 391,200,000 cost 43,579,680 and had a face value of $97,800,000 meaning a net gain of $54,220,320 not a loss. and again that is face value only, not counting the fact the sell $10 rolls face value of those for $18.95 + S&H which means an extra $8.95 per roll over face or 22 cents per quarter over face, and 100 coins ($25) bags are sold for $34.95 each which is $9.95 ot 10 cent each over face value for those quarters. Not counting also San Francisco minted coins that are ONLY sold through the Mint store at those same roll prices and included with the business strikes in special 3-coin sets for $9.95 for 75 cents face value.

I will stop thinking about sales tax when they stop taxing the same money twice. Once when I get it (income tax) and once when it give it (sales tax).

Shadz, it is obvious you do not get it and now obvious we will never be able to explain it to you.

You post the same thing over and over. No matter how many times post it, two and two will never equal five. So please, stop it. No more.


We are done here. There is plenty of information for the reader to decide.