
US man pays tax bill using five wheelbarrows of coins - giles
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38603615
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my_first_acct
I was about to repeat the old story that (in the US) pennies are not legal
tender in amounts over 25 cents, but it turns out that since 1965, pennies are
legal tender in any quantity. However, payees are not obliged to accept them;
for instance, municipal bus lines can refuse to accept fare payments in
pennies. [1][2]

[1]
[http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp](http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp)

[2] [https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/faqs/Currency/Pages...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx)

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velodrome
This guy should have went down to the DMV to get his questions answered. He
wasted more time going through all this mess.

 _Being self employed, I hardly have time to sleep, much less make a trip to
my local DMV just to ask a "30 second question" so I tried to call my "local"
DMV office by calling calling the only phone number listed on the internet for
my local DMV. _

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mattbgates
When you make the government work for their share of your share... like a
boss! ;)

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neverminder
Has been done (tried) before:
[http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/LITHUANIA/1999...](http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/LITHUANIA/1999-09/0936228834)
, visual:
[http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+_7ffbead1aa9217ad05eb5487c4...](http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+_7ffbead1aa9217ad05eb5487c4c8f75f.jpg)

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jjawssd
If you play stupid games you will win stupid prizes

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svachalek
This seems to be a statement on the stupidity of still using pennies in 2017,
more so than the point he was actually trying to make.

~~~
jhoechtl
Whats wrong with using pennies?

~~~
tener
They are worth less than they cost?

Imagine using coins worth $0.001 or $0.0001. You could use them, but why?

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ourmandave
Take _that_ cashless society advocates!

Wait...

~~~
qbrass
US man pays tax bill using five wheelbarrows of prepaid cards with pennies
left on the balance.

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jay_kyburz
Not legal tender in Australia. They could just refuse to accept it.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender)

~~~
loeg
The US really ought to do away with pennies, and probably nickels as well.
This stunt would be 10x less silly with dimes.

~~~
alxmdev
Canada did away with pennies: [http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-
mint/phasing-out-the...](http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/phasing-
out-the-penny-6900002)

From Wikipedia:

 _Production of the penny ceased in May 2012, and the Royal Canadian Mint
ceased the distribution of them as of February 4, 2013. However, like all
discontinued currency in the Canadian monetary system, the coin remains legal
tender. Once distribution of the coin ceased, though, vendors no longer were
expected to return pennies as change for cash purchases, and were encouraged
to round purchases to the nearest five cents. Non-cash transactions are still
denominated to the cent._

~~~
loeg
Many countries in the eurozone price round to avoid the smallest coins as
well:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_coins#Price_rounding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_coins#Price_rounding)

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toodlebunions
Who has time for that?

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sean_patel
> Nick Stafford's coin payment required 11 people who were hired to break open
> the paper rolls of the coins, taking four hours.

So you are telling me this 'Businessman' wasted 11 peeps x 4 hours x 10$ min
wage = $440, to 'make a statement' to IRS and pay his $400 tax bill with
pennies / coins?!

What kind of a businessman does that? What a waste of man power.

~~~
alkonaut
Surely he was also required to pay the extra costs for the transaction at the
receiving end? I can't imagine the authority was somehow required to accept
his coin payment, and not only accept but do it for free?

~~~
crystalmeph
Yes, they were required to accept it. They are collecting taxes for the
government (I'm not sure if the VA DMV is directly run by the government, or
is a contractor doing business for the government, but it doesn't make a
difference in this case), which means they have to accept legal US money, in
any denomination, because of this section of US code, which he mentions on his
website[0]:

As per section 31 U.S.C. 5103 of the "United States Coinage Act of 1965"
Federal law specifically says: "United States coins and currency are legal
tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."

Even charging an extra handling fee for dealing with all the coins is
difficult to justify given the wording of the law. Luckily, carrying around 5
wheelbarrows of coins is also inconvenient for the person who's doing the
protesting, so you really only see this sort of thing when someone is really
aggravated and has lots of free time and money, it's not like we have a rash
of DMV offices being crushed under a singularity's worth of pennies.

[0][http://www.craftvinyl.com/page165](http://www.craftvinyl.com/page165) (He
actually got the BBC to link directly to his site, wow, he just made another
million I bet!)

~~~
alkonaut
I can see how US law requires public entities to accept cash, but it's not
clear whether they are allowed to charge transction fees for "expensive"
transactions (othewise those transactions are subsidied by others)

Also: does the law imply that every public entity that you pay taxes to in the
US must have a physical office somewhere that you can go pay with cash? Mind
blown.

