Nothing is certain about the penny's death except taxes complicate it

We already knew that making the penny is an immense — and immensely expensive — pain for the country. As of Monday, we're hearing a bit more about some of the challenges behind phasing it out: After all, if Canada can do it, why not the U.S.? One reason in particular stands out. Aside from people hoarding pennies on the chance they might go out of circulation (really), getting rid of the penny would mess with many states' (and some cities') retail taxes, which at least for now depend on charging cents on the dollar. Canadians got around this by rounding a product's total price (tax included) to the nearest nickel, but some economists say rounding itself could lead to inflation. And so, our penny survives. [Source]

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