[dyslexit]

The article also points out that some states and a lot cities require retailers to provide exact change. Congress would need to pass legislation to allow rounding nationally. I'm guessing in the meantime they'll continue holding pennies from previous years?

[Telemakhos]

So, implement sales tax like Europe does VAT and include it in on the shelf price, and make sure all shelf prices end in 0 or 5. Then, adding up items in a cart will also end in 0 or 5, and the tax is already included, so there is no math beyond the addition that could change the total to anything ending in something that is not 0 or 5. No matter how people pay, cash or card, the price will be the same, and it will always end in 0 or 5. As an added bonus, customers don't have to wonder how much tax they'll pay, because that's already included in the price.

[munk-a]

America is allergic to baked in taxes - you've got to keep the appearance of a deal even when there isn't one. America also embraces a lot of junk and hidden fees - ticketmaster is a great example of this.

I think consumers would love having baked in taxes and clear prices and were the government functional I'd hope that a consumer advocacy agency could enforce this - but that's simply not where we are right now.

[kasey_junk]

America isn’t against baked in taxes because of the appearance of a deal, it’s because there is the large part of the population that is against _taxation_. Their argument (which is probably right) is that if you bake in the tax then it will be ignored by more buyers and it will be easier to raise.

Lots of odd American customs can be explained by this phenomenon. The other major difference in the states is that we don’t have many places that only have federal taxes. States and every locality from the county to the water reclamation board can have tax authority. Those 2 things in conjunction go a long way to explain the differences you see in US tax treatment.

[beowulfey]

You can do this with State taxes too, but I think your impression that people just ignore it is correct. A good example of this is gas prices. Gas in CA is 70c per gallon, vs about 25c per gallon in the Northeast. This gets baked into the price, and is way more expensive in CA, but people need to buy gas. So you just have to pay. And since it is everywhere in the state, most people don't notice the difference.

[linguae]

Additionally, having baked-in taxes à la Japan would change how advertising works, since we don't have a uniform sales tax (unlike Japan). For example, I live in San Ramon, CA, which has a sales tax rate of 9.75%. If I drive just two miles north to Danville, the sales tax goes down to 8.75%. If I drive a few miles south to Dublin, the sales tax goes up to 10.25%. The reason is because California has a base statewide sales tax of 7.25% (with 1% of it going to local governments), and city and county governments are free to add up to 4% for local sales taxes.

By comparison, in Japan the consumption tax is 10% for most items (8% for groceries and takeout), and it's the same nationwide.

In addition, there are sometimes fees that are prohibited by law from being baked in. For example, California has a statewide ban on free "single-use" bags in grocery stores and some other businesses. These businesses are required to charge their customers for bags, and they are not allowed to bake it into the price. Some municipalities have extended this to disposable cups as part of an effort to discourage them in favor of reusable cups. For example, Santa Cruz mandates a 25 cent fee on disposable cups. The Costco $1.50 hot dog + drink combo is normally $1.50 + sales tax, but in Santa Cruz it's $1.50 + $.25 mandatory cup fee + sales tax (yes, the cup is taxable). I have yet to see someone bring a disposable cup to Costco or to other places where paper cups are sold, however.

Having baked-in taxes will require big changes about how taxes and fees work in America, the land of extra sales taxes, extra fees, surcharges, and tipping.

[munk-a]

Some good news though - having baked in sales tax being required in advertising actually aligns marketing lobbying with pushing for harmonized sales taxes which I'd generally consider a more just system. IMO adding random regressive taxes in different counties to make up budget shortfalls causing very strange market effects is a bad thing.

[lostapathy]

Yes, let’s solve a tricky problem the hardest way possible.

[cratermoon]

Penalizing the poor further?

[benregenspan]

> they'll continue holding pennies from previous years?

I think most of the ones from previous years are all in people's junk drawers, couches, etc., and only go back into circulation when someone decides to dump them into a Coinstar machine. Retailers are already reporting shortages.

[patrickthebold]

Is gas sold as a whole penny amounts in those locations? Where I am it's always something and 9/10ths of a cent.

[ryandrake]

Allowing gas stations to denominate their prices by the 10th of a cent has always struck me as a just an underhanded and extreme way to practice the "9.99" retail psychological trick. Why not allow retailers to price things 9.99999? Ridiculous.

[cwmma]

It's because technically the dollar is divided into Dimes, Cents, and Mil. (this is why dimes say 'One Dime' on them instead of 'Ten Cents'.

So while the mil isn't really used anywhere else that regular people see any more due to inflation, it is a valid division of the dollar and that's why they are able to get away with it.

[Aloisius]

> (this is why dimes say 'One Dime' on them instead of 'Ten Cents'.

No, it's purely stylistic. We tend to spell out denominations on coinage and "dime" is just the American spelling of disme, meaning a tenth.

The capped bust dime from 1809-1839 had "10 C." rather than "One Dime". Similarly, the capped bust quarter said "25 C." instead of the modern "Quarter Dollar", the half dollar said "50 C." rather than the later "Half Dollar" and the half dime said "5 C." rather than the later "Half Dime."

Most of the 18th century and early 19th century coinage, besides half pennies and pennies didn't have their denomination written on them at all.

[georgefrowny]

There is no such decipence division in the UK, but fuel is still sold with a vestigial .9 pence on the end. In fact, since the denomination is per litre, not gallon, the .9 is about 4 times more significant.

When the final calculation of XX.YYY litres * AAA.9 pence/litre is done, it's then rounded off to 1 pence.

Currency conversions are also frequently done with readers that aren't a round multiple of pence, even in official government tables: https://www.trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/exchange_rates/view/...

[munk-a]

I'd like to clarify that point a bit.

They're allowed to get away with it because of a dysfunctional lobbying driven government. Mils don't exist in the common knowledge and if any reasonable person looked at this they'd call it out. It is useful in accounting but a Mill has never been minted and the last half penny was minted in 1857. It has never been possible using issued physical legal tender in the US to pay a debt of $3.129

The Mill doesn't exist because of some archaic need - it's pure dysfunction and the utilization of it in gas prices is a practice that should and very easily could be made illegal.

[ryandrake]

Yes, the "Mill" discussion looks to be totally irrelevant. [1] and [2] seem to back up my claim that, at least in modern times, it's purely a "just-below pricing" psychological trick and has nothing to do with the Mill unit.

$4.999 looks a lot smaller than $5.00 to everyday people and it makes the gas company more money than $4.99. That's all there is to it.

1: https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/why-do-gas-prices-alw...

2. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/energy/why-gas-prices-fractio...

[Fritatta]

Certain states have manufactured plastic mill tokens in the 1920s and 30s to aid in the payment of taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_tax_token

[LadyCailin]

So do whatever they do with mils but for the penny too. They don’t nor have they ever minted a mil coin, so the procedure for this is already well established if this is correct.

[dimensional_dan]

Has a Mil ever been minted?

[munk-a]

It has not - and it's been more than 150 years since the last sub-cent denomination (the half penny) was minted.

[Fritatta]

Not by the US mint but they exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_tax_token

[AnimalMuppet]

Turns out the station charges you a round number of cents per gallon. Then there are federal taxes, which are, IIRC, 24.5 cents per gallon. And then there's state tax, which varies from state to state but seems to always be x.4 cents per gallon.

So I don't think it's just "evil retailer tricks".

[Wowfunhappy]

Actually, I'd say by all means, allow them to price things $9.99̅ so we can all agree it's equal to $10 and be done with it.

[patrickthebold]

of course 9.99...(repeating) is mathematically 10, so I have a hard time being against allowing that.

[Ferret7446]

The amount is only rounded at the end of the transaction. Those fractions make a difference if you're buying more than a few gallons

[what]

Is the amount rounded before or after taxes? Must be after or you have to round again. So who eats or gains the rounding? The merchant or the tax collector?

[gus_massa]

Here in Argentina the law says they must be rounded down. Initially it was for 5 AR$cents, and some shops still has the oficial sign that says AR$ 0.05.

We unofficially drop the coins/bills when the reach ~US$0.03, so now we dropped the AR$50 bills and everythig in cash is rounded down to AR$100 (US$0.07).

(The only exception is the photocopy shop 2 blocks away from home.)

Credit cards are charged the exact ammount, with cents that are irrelevant.

[unethical_ban]

If the national government literally stops creating a certain precision of money, i expect the "exact change" requirement should be invalid.

[thatguy0900]

You volunteering your business to be the the test legal case for that? Or are you stocking pennies?

[bdangubic]

“change will be provided via Venmo” sign at the entrance :)

[anticensor]

Payers are allowed to complete transaction using a single method, you can't violate that right.