Should The Penny Stop Being Minted?

@unholyroller - Nah we'll never see a true cashless society, because as soon as that sort of thing would happen, shadow currencies would crop up. Though I'm not sure how many Swiss Francs, Liberty Dollars or Ithaca Hours would go to the electronic American Dollar at that point.... :-)

It doesn't matter if taxes need cents or not. You could still round up or down to the nearest nickel (or debased 5 cent piece). In the U.S. sales taxes almost always make the total an odd cent amount. But it doesn't really matter. And I don't buy the argument that if the penny was eliminated that inflation would result. Non-cash transactions would be completely unaffected. I also don't see a completely cashless society happening anytime in the near future. Just my opinion.

I firmly believe that if they stopped making them tomorow, within a years time they would effectively be gone from circulation. they don't make billions of them every year because the economy is growing so much that they need them, they make them to replace the billions they made last year that aren't circulating and are sitting in jars. They stop making cents and within a month or two there will be a severe shortage of cents in circulation. Banks and businesses will start offering a premium to get them and that will start people actively hoarding them. The premiums offered will not be able to attract enough cents out of hiding to satisfy commerce. Businesses will first resort to offering substitutes for the coins, and then eventually just going ahead and start rounding on their own without having to be made mandatory. Now the coins will not be needed and the premiums will disappear. with no incentive to turn them in they will either stay in the hoards, or when someone does turn them back in they will wind up being sent back to the Fed because the businesses are no longer asking for them for making change. With the rounding they no longer need them.

I have seen several severe cent shortages and that has been the pattern the public has followed. So far none of them have gotten past the substitute stage with just a few businesses starting to adopt rounding before cent production was increase easing the shortage. And it does happen fast.



Except with rounding there is no need for cents for change even with the sales tax system. Rounding is done AFTER the tax is applied. In some cases you will pay one or Two Cents more tax, and in some cases you will pay one or Two Cents less with the overall net effect being no difference in taxes paid. And there is no way you can adjust your prices so that no matter what random choice of products you make the total price, with taxes added, will always round up. So there is no way a business can profit by "always" getting that extra Two Cents.



However many the two people involved in the transaction agree to.

yes

The way that I would say the feds would get the penny out of circluition is by having people trade them in for cash,and then destroy them.

I only voted yes, since if the BEP can still print billions of one dollar notes (when there are 1.4 billion coins to use), why not let the Mint make billions of one cent coins?

Realistically and seriously we should to stop minting the cent and to stop printing the one dollar note.

But the cost savings of doing either improvement for the government is chump change as compared to the national budget. You can say you have to start somewhere, but not on the petty items. Go with the big items and work your way down.

I'd like it to cease mintage for circulation but kept in mint sets

Not only here, but everywhere else. It all started way back in the early 1970s when they looked at aluminum and even by the huge analysis and report written by RTI in 1976.

Technically you can even go back to the mid 1850s when they went from the large cent to the small cent.

And it will continue until the problem is resolved and inflation stops. If the cent is eliminated, it is just a matter of time, until it becomes the nickels turn, and so on. Moving up the denominations.