Halt the production of pennies by 2016 to save an easy 17 billion dollars a year. 1 penny costs .0241$ to make.

End the production of pennies before 2020. Last year, in 2013, over 7 billion pennies were made, according to the U.S. mint, which actually costs 17 billion pennies to make. Each penny costs about 2.5 cents to make, meaning that each year, the treasury wastes 10 billion dollars on absolutely nothing. Countries such as Australia and New Zealand have already eliminated the penny and have had no negative repercussions. Simply round up to the nearest nickel. Thus, 4 cents would simply round up to 5. If the rounding worries you, this is already being done with pennies. If i were to purchase an item for ninety-nine cents under and 8% tax rate, I would owe 1.068408$, which we simply round to 1.07$, or one dollar and seven cents. Rounding to the nearest nickel is not much different.