Common Cents Act

Cash transaction rounding changed from mandatory (shall round) to permissive (may round). The introduced version required all cash transactions to be rounded; the engrossed version makes rounding optional and adds a rule of construction stating nothing in the Act requires any person to round.

New subsection (c) requires that when an employer rounds a cash payment to an employee, it must always round up to the nearest 5 cents, protecting workers from losing money through rounding down.

New Section 5 requires the Federal Reserve Board to submit a strategic plan within 90 days addressing penny orders and deposits at commercial coin terminals, including an assessment by Treasury of impacts on low-income communities, older consumers, and unbanked/underbanked individuals. Follow-up evaluation reports are required at 6, 18, and 30 months.

Financial institutions are now explicitly included as covered entities subject to the rounding provisions, expanding the bill's applicability beyond just sellers of goods and services.

New subsection (b) allows additional rounding in favor of the customer: if the person is paying the customer in cash, round up; if the customer is paying the person in cash, round down. This goes beyond the standard 5-cent rounding rules.

Rounding is now conditioned on exact change not being available at the time of transaction. The introduced version applied rounding to all cash transactions regardless of whether exact change was available.

The term 'covered amount' is newly defined to include not just the total transaction amount but also the change due to a customer when they overpay in cash, broadening what can be rounded.

New Section 7 defines 'covered committees' (House Financial Services and Senate Banking) and 'financial institution' by reference to section 4(k) of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956.

Section 5112 of title 31 is amended to allow 5-cent coins with an inner layer of zinc and outer layer of nickel, with weight between 4 and 6 grams (versus the fixed 5 grams for copper-nickel). The Secretary may prescribe the exact composition subject to cost reduction and minimal machine impact.

The specific 1-year deadline for ceasing penny production is removed. The engrossed version simply states the Secretary shall cease production of one-cent coins for general circulation without a fixed date.

The requirement that net receipts from numismatic penny sales must equal or exceed total cost of production (including variable and fixed costs) is removed.

New Section 4 provides that adherence to the rounding provisions does not violate any federal, state, tribal, or local law, regulation, or standard. However, it explicitly carves out minimum wage, overtime pay, and paid leave laws from this protection.

New Section 6 creates a general framework for discontinuing any coin from circulation. The Secretary must provide 60-day advance notice to Congress with reasoning and a comprehensive phase-out plan considering consumer, business, and economic impacts, plus a briefing within 30 days of the notice.