Nobody will ever round down though
“They are already rounding fairly up and down (to the nearest cent).”
Well, that depends on how you look at it. They’re not rounding down unit prices on goods or they wouldn’t all end in 99 cents, or 49 cents, etc. They do that because it’s a marketing trick, to make people pay a higher price than they would if they simple priced it with round numbers.
So, if a product is 1.69 today, it won’t be 1.70 after the pennies are gone, because that doesn’t work for their marketing purposes. If we’re lucky, they’ll price it at 1.65 and they will take the hit, but I think it’s more like that it would be priced at 1.75 and we would take the hit.
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There is no reason to suggest that.
Years of tax increases as opposed to tax decreases is the reason. Sure, 10% of $5 compared to 6% of $5 is only .20, but when you add $4 to a $100 purchase, it adds up for those of us on tight budgets who watch our pennies. I can accept the arguement that retailers might round down to foster warm fuzzies to the consumer, but really, what incentive does the government have to round down instead of up?