I sat wordless in my overstuffed chair as I read with concern the recent news feature regarding the man in Canadian that attempted to pay his tax bill with 200,000 Canadian pennies. It seems that the gentleman was a bit feed up with the persistent increase in his tax liability and this was his approach to challenging the situation. Mr. Normand Czepial’s has complained that his property tax allegedly has increased by roughly $4,000 dollars within the preceding several years. Can’t say I blame the gentlemen at all.
I can merely imagine the spectacle of this man hauling 200,000 pennies with him to city hall. Supposedly he required the use of a child’s swimming pool in order to transport his 213,000 plus pennies to the city hall offices. Even though he was denied the use of the pennies to fulfill his debt obligation under the Canadian Currency Act, I believe the authorities may have gotten the hint.
Here in America we currently do not have similar currency laws as Canada when using pennies to pay a bill. Canadian law clearly specifies that you can use no more then 25 pennies to pay any bill. The gentleman was clearly over the Canadian limit and the local mayor promptly refused his payment, while suggesting alternative means of settlement. I would venture to say that after this episode in Canada, it will not take our state legislatures long to pass a duplicate bill in their respective states.
Even though the law states that pennies as well as our other American currencies are legal tender for any sort of debt, it is more or less left at the discretion of the various businesses as to whether they wish to accept them in payment or not. In fact, I personally encountered a situation with a Delaware State Revenue Office which refused to accept any sort of cash. I had to either submit a check or obtain a money order so that I could pay for the needed business license.
As times get worse and our economy starts to bottleneck at all levels of management we are apt to see some frightening changes occurring. The recent bill which our elected smartparentingus so generously past has some very serious repercussions awaiting us in the future. This un-needed overhaul of financial regulations is merely another socialistic scheme to gain unlimited control over commerce. Now not only is our government in control of the automotive industries and the mortgage and banking institutes but it seems like any sort of financial transaction will now fall under the scrutiny of the federal government. These established rules have managed to touch just about every aspect of finance and displays the largest abuse yet of a federal power grab.