Indian Ameri

Have you ever wondered how much money the government gets in 'one cent taxers'? 'One cent taxers' - define it. In our (Indian) terms the best way to explain is by using the term 'Bata 95ers'. All Bata branded shoes end at a 95 paise rate. Similary most US products end at 99 cents. Whats the big difference? Well we don't pay sales tax for the 95 paise we spend on our shoes for (till I was in India, but now it is charged only when use plastic money). But here tax eats out even the 99ers. For a normal working citizen that doesn't make much difference (with the Lincolns being thrown on streets whose cost of production is 14% higher than the usual price - Well Lincoln can't be forgotten and thats another sad story). But on the whole the tax revenue from 99ers is humungus on the whole with a whooping $34000 roughly (from my estimates, the true fact is available in the US revenue website in a secondary format) in one day. It is equivalent of pilfering one cent from all the citibank card holders from a small city (just a guess). One thing I can say other than me also donating a pint of my sweat to the government is - Bata guys still earn more money by not giving back the 5 paise back to their customers. Now that's Indian strategic marketing. The customer always feel happy paying the full 100 and calls it a 99.95 shoe....