Round and Round

The amount on our latest municipal tax bill included one penny. To illustrate, let’s say it was $1234.01. I prepared a check for $1234.00. My wife suggested I include the one cent. I scoffed outright, and with generous bluster, pointed out the rounding rule.

Off to city hall I went. I slid the check across the counter to the clerk, who began entering the name, address and amount into her computer. Very casually, she announced there would be an “amount due” of one cent in our account. Almost, but not quite incredulous, I pointed out, with generous bluster, the rounding rule.

When it ceased production of the penny in 2012, the Royal Canadian Mint explained the rounding rule to Canadians. The rounding rule, pointed out the city hall clerk, completely blusterless, applies to cash only.

Oh, fine.

I asked if I could pay the penny now. She said, yes. So I took out a nickel and slid it across the counter. She smiled and explained that because of the rounding rule, she was unable to give me four cents change. In a cash situation, four cents would be rounded to five cents, meaning we would have sat there all day, me handing her the nickel to cover my one-cent debt, and her, handing me back the same nickel after rounding off my four cents change!

I muttered, “Keep the nickel.” Would I get a credit of four cents in my account? Nope.

Sigh.

Normally, I do not practice penny pinching. Still, I prefer not to think of the moral of this story as “listen to your wife”, but, instead, “pay in cash next time and save the penny”. Either way, to me, it makes absolutely no cents.