If they really get rid of the penny, when rounding up to the nearest nickel, who'll get to keep the difference

Question

For example, what if something is $10.21 after sales tax is added. Will it be rounded up to $10.25 (my guess is that it will, the consumer always gets screwed). If so, who gets to keep the extra 4 cents, the government, or Wal-Mart?

This could amount to billions of dollars a year that is squeezed out of us all !

Answer 1

Yes it happened in the UK when VAT was introduced and when decimalization was introduced....then we had the half penny which banks wouldn't recognise...so cheques had to be rounded up to the nearest penny...

The winners are the businesses, the banks and the government.

The loser is you.

Answer 2

I think most of our future purchasing will be done with plastic ie: credit cards or debit cards.  Banks are already trying to phase out checks, physical currency may soon be a thing of the past.  By this time it won't matter if it is $10.21 because it will be digitally subtracted from your account.  

But you do hold a legitimate concern if coins are still going to be widely used.  I think a far more likely event will be the change in composition of coins to cheaper metals.  In that case, the penny will live on.

Answer 3

the goverment of course

Answer 4

I doubt, just because the government decides to quit minting pennies, that they will no longer be accepted anywhere. That's what they ought to do, just quit making them and let them become kind of a rare thing.

I can only remember using a large amount of pennies one time on coffee... because I was trying to get rid of a huge sack I had of them =)

If this happened though, the extra few cents would probably go towards taxes.

Answer 5

You're right, they're going to nickel and dime us to death. The retailers and the government will reap the rewards. We get what they dish out to us.