Basically, the Royal Canadian Mint is going to stop 'minting' pennies. Apparently it costs 1.6 cents to make a penny. And apparently we're hoarders and all these pennies are getting lost in the sock drawers and jars in Canadian households. So they issue more pennies per year than are being used.
So the penny is going the way of the dodo.
And we're supposed to believe that this is going to save billions of dollars for the government and have no impact on us, whatsoever. Apparently, businesses won't even have to replace their cash registers. It's all been well-thought out. Nice and tidy.
Costs will be rounded down or rounded up at the cash register. Prices of individuals items will stay the same. Ending in .97 or .99 or .49 or .29 --- or whatever arbitrary price is associated with the item you want to purchase. Rounding will be done at the end of the transaction, not for each individual item. The cashier will still total up all your costs the exact same way and then apply it overly generous 12% HST (yeah, that's going nowhere yet) and come up with a total that very likely does not end in .05 or .10. Then, the TOTAL of your purchase will be rounded to the nearest nickel. If your purchase ends in .01, .02, .06, or .07, you save some cash. If it ends in .03, .04, .08, or .09, you'll have to put out a bit more.
Here's the kicker, say for example, I go to 7-eleven and buy my family 5 slurpees at $1.49 each. I then pay my 12% tax on them, and my total comes to $8.34. So I get up to the counter and pay with cash... $8.35 --- Alright, that only costs me an extra penny. That's not too bad. But, if I pay with debit, I'll get the slurpees for $8.34.
Hmmm... maybe I'll stop using cash altogether. Because really, we make a lot of purchases... and if I pay a penny or two extra for every purchase I make for a year, I'm looking at a decent chunk of change. Enough to take my family our for slurpees several times a year!
Purchasing with debit... a cashless society. Win win!
I don't know... is it just me or does this sound like another way to gouge the average Canadian family? Do you really think that the businesses are going to happily round down their purchases? It sounds fair, odds are half the purchases will be rounded down and half rounded up. But I'm sceptical. Are these businesses REALLY going to be content to never have tills that balance at the end of the day because they've been shorting themselves, or over-charging the consumers? Or do you think, perhaps, that they'll just increase their prices to numbers that conveniently allow them to always round up?
And once that happens, how long are we going to wait until the tax is increased to 15% to make calculations easier? Cause really, are the Feds going to reduce our taxes to 10% to make for the easiest possible calculations? I think not.
Call me cynical, but I think this is a very bad move for the average Canadian consumer. A very bad move indeed!
RIP Penny
1858 - 2012
3 comments:
I think its perfectly reasonable to stop minting them, but surely there are enough in circulation to keep using them for years to come. And yes, I too am skeptical about retailers "conveniently" changing prices to always end in a 0.08/9 or 0.03/4.
An excellent point! Why take them out of circulation... why not see how long we can go using the pennies that are out there.
Of course, now the 'penny-hoarders' might hoard more thinking they'll be worth something someday.
I argued with folks that it would mean increase in costs and I was told "oh no, they'll always round down and not up." I think something that is left to an individual cashier to determine is the stupidest thing the gov't has thought up - and we know they think up lots of stupid things. I didn't realize that using cards means the price doesn't change. Yup it's the movement to a cashless society, which I think is a shame but then, who am I? LOL And I have a ton of pennies, going to cash them in for my trip this summer.
Post a Comment