Revenue stamp

“ Section 6 of the war revenue act of 1898 provided that there should be 'levied, collected, and paid' in respect of the instruments mentioned, 'by any person or persons or party who shall make, sign, or issue the same, or for whose use or benefit the same shall be made, signed, or issued, the several taxes or sums of money' set forth in the schedule which followed. There is nothing in the nature of a stamp tax which per se negatives either the personal obligation, otherwise to be derived from the words imposing the tax, or its collection by action. ”

“ Scarcely a thing can be offered for sale until it has a federal revenue stamp affixed to it. If you buy a hat you find a document pasted inside showing that the government has already levied 2$000 upon the sale; a 4$000 umbrella has a $500 stamp wound round the top of the rod; every pair of shoes has a stamp stuck on the inside of one of the heels—for some reason they have not yet thought of selling each shoe separately. ”

“ It appeared, however, from the statements to which the Secretary had alluded, that the tax on stills, the carriage tax, the tax on licenses, on sales at auction, and the tax on refined sugar, had been included in one class, and the expense of collecting all those taxes, without distinguishing the charges on each branch, had been stated to be nearly twenty per cent., whilst the expense of collecting the stamp duty, another branch of the internal taxes, was short of five per cent., varying only a fraction from the charges on the revenue from impost and tonnage. ”

“ Moreover, it may be observed that in the stamp tax sections of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 the words 'certificates of indebtedness', consistenty with this administrative history, have been eliminated as a separate taxable category of corporate instruments, and are employed simply as a term of art embracing all the instruments taxed, that is, 'bonds,' 'debentures' and other instruments in registered form or with coupons. ”

“ Such stamp-duties as those in England upon cards and dice, upon newspapers and periodical pamphlets, etc., are properly taxes upon consumption; the final payment falls upon the persons who use or consume such commodities. Such stamp-duties as those upon licences to retail ale, wine, and spirituous liquors, though intended, perhaps, to fall upon the profits of the retailers, are likewise finally paid by the consumers of those liquors. ”

“ In considering the law relating to the use of stamps, it was the rule of the office to give that signification to the names used in the statute descriptive of various instruments subject to stamp tax, which was ordinarily given to such descriptive terms by business and professional men. In the year 1901 it may be assumed that the Internal Revenue Office will exist while the Government shall exist, although it came into being as a war measure and as a temporary policy. ”

“ Those modes of taxation, by stamp-duties and by duties upon registration, are of very modern invention. In the course of little more than a century, however, stamp-duties have, in Europe, become almost universal, and duties upon registration extremely common. There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
Taxes upon the transference of property from the dead to the living fall finally as well as immediately upon the person to whom the property is transferred. Taxes upon the sale of land fall altogether upon the seller. ”

“ Both judicial and non-judicial stamps are sold on the system usual elsewhere. The Stamp Act is in force in the Agency. Statistics of the receipts will be found in the Appendix, and it will be seen that they are very small. Its revenue from this source has often been held to be an index of the prosperity of a district, since where trade is large and business brisk non-judicial stamps are largely required, while where the people have money in their pockets they are usually fond of spending it on litigation and the sale of judicial stamps accordingly increases. ”

“ The first contention-with respect to jurisdiction-is that, the claim having been rejected, the remedy of the claimants was an action against the collector of internal revenue, and not against the United States. The course of the pertinent legislation since the passage of the war revenue act of 1898 may be briefly reviewed: In 1900, Congress provided for the redemption of, or allowance for, internal revenue stamps, including cases where 'the rates or duties represented thereby' had been 'excessive in amount, paid in error, or in any manner wrongfully collected.' Act of May 12, 1900, chap. ”

“ B. V.
[84] "The stamp act says, that the Americans shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor make their wills, unless they pay such and such sums" in specie for the stamps which must give validity to the proceedings. The operation of such a tax, had it obtained the consent of the people, appeared inevitable; and its annual productiveness, if I recollect well, was estimated by its proposer in the house of commons at the committee for supplies, at 100,000l. sterling. ”

“ The duty next in importance is that which is charged on advertisements. Our belief is, that a relief from this taxation would be a prodigious advantage to all departments of trade and commerce, as well as to various social interests. That the sum of eighteenpence should be exacted by the state from every person—a poor housemaid, for example—on advertising for a situation, is, to say the least of it, inexpressibly shabby. The stamp-duty of one penny on each newspaper is reckoned to be the third of these taxes on knowledge. ”

“ The country therefore turned by common instinct to a system of internal duties,—to incomes, to excise, to stamps. In the extra session of the preceding year, Congress had, by the Act of August 5, 1861, laid the foundation for a system of internal revenue by providing for a direct tax of twenty millions of dollars on the real estate of the country, and for an income tax of three per cent. on all incomes in excess of eight hundred dollars per annum. ”

“ A stamp duty is embraced within the purview of those taxes which are denominated indirect, and one of the natural characteristics of which is, although it may not be essential, that they are susceptible of being shifted from the person upon whom in the first instance the duty of payment is laid. We are thus invoked by construction to add to the statute a provision forbidding all attempts to shift the burden of the stamp tax when the nature of the indirect taxation which the statute creates suggests a contrary inference. ”

“ If it be true that a stamp tax required upon every instrument evidencing a sale is really and practically a tax upon the property sold, it is equally clear that a stamp duty upon foreign bills of lading is a tax upon the articles exported. ”

“ Valuation is not the only thing to be considered. As was pointed out by the court of appeals, the familiar stamp tax of 2 cents on checks, irrespective of amount, the poll tax of a fixed sum, irrespective of income or earning capacity, and many others, illustrate the necessity and practice of sometimes substituting count for weight. ”

“ We are of opinion that it is within the power of Congress to prescribe that a package of any article which it subjects to tax, and upon which it requires the affixing of a stamp, shall contain only the article which is subject to the tax. ”

“ Tweed of New York, 'What can they do about it?' It is a ready-money tax, from which the taxpayer receives no visible equivalent, as he does when he pays a penny for a postage stamp. When he has paid it, he is simply allowed to take his own property where he wishes to take it, and do with it what he wishes to do. ”

“ As regards indirect taxes, again, there appear to be some cases at least where it is by no means certain that the charge is passed on; stamp duties, for instance, especially where moderate in amount, may have the effect of diminishing pro tanto the profits in business of the person paying them, or the income which he enjoys. Where they are heavy, as, for instance, with the French registration duties on the transfer of property, there appears to be little doubt that they constitute a deduction from the price which a seller receives, and thus they are direct enough. ”

“ Board of Assessors, 121 La. 116, 46 So. 122, where open accounts arising on the sale of merchandise were the subject of the assessment, the court said: 'There can be no serious question but that the legislature has provided that credits due upon open accounts arising out of business done in this state by nonresidents shall be taxed. . . . The state imposes this tax because of her need of the revenue to be derived from it; she extends to the business the protection of her laws, and seeks to make the business bear its just proportion of the burden of taxation. ”

“ My advocacy of consumption and similar taxes, such as stamp taxes of many kinds, is not actuated by any desire to relieve those with large incomes from the maximum of contribution which may wisely and fairly be imposed on them. ”

“ Setting aside $7,300,000 as [Pg 240] an annual fund to be devoted by law to this primary object, he had to deal only with such revenue as should remain.
The net receipts from customs he calculated at $9,500,000 for the year, and from lands and postage at $450,000; or $9,950,000 in all. Besides this sum of less than ten million dollars, internal taxes, and especially the tax on whiskey-stills, produced altogether about $650,000; thus raising the income to $10,600,000, or $3,300,000 in excess of the fund set apart for the debt. ”

“ By section 270 of the Tax Law of New York, a stamp tax is imposed upon 'all sales, or agreements to sell, or memoranda of sales and all deliveries or transfers of shares or certificates of stock * * * in any domestic or foreign association, company or corporation * * * whether made upon or shown by the books of the association, company, corporation or trustee, or by any assignment in blank, or by any delivery, or by any paper or agreement or memorandum or other evidence of sale or transfer, whether intermediate or final. ”

“ Though they sometimes fall upon the person who is not very able to pay, the time of payment is, in most cases, sufficiently convenient for him. When the payment becomes due, he must, in most cases, have the more to pay. They are levied at very little expense, and in general subject the contributors to no other inconveniency, besides always the unavoidable one of paying the tax. In France, the stamp duties are not much complained of. Those of registration, which they call the Controle, are. ”

“ Such taxes, even when they are proportioned to the value of the property transferred, are still unequal; the frequency of transference not being always equal in property of equal value. When they are not proportioned to this value, which is the case with the greater part of the stamp duties and duties of registration, they are still more so. ”

“ The Revenue Act of 1921 defines gross income as including gains, profits, and income derived by the taxpayer from any source whatever, and provides that in computing net income of a corporation 'all interest paid or accrued within the taxable year on its indebtedness' is deductible from such gross income. Treasury regulations promulgated under authority of the statute state that if bonds are issued by a corporation at a premium the net amount of such premium is gain or income which should be amortized over the life of the bonds. ”

“ The stamp duty is contingent on the happening of the event of sale, and the element of absolute and unavoidable demand is lacking. As such it falls, as stamp taxes ordinarily do, within the second class of the forms of taxation. ”

“ I advocate consumption and general stamp taxes—such as every other belligerent country without exception has found it well to impose—because of the well attested fact that while productive of very large revenues in the aggregate, they [Pg 41] are easily borne, causing no strain or dislocation, and automatically collected; and because of the further fact that they tend to induce economy than which nothing is more important at this time and which, as far as I can observe, is not being practised by the rank and file of our people to a degree comparable to what it is in England and France. ”

“ For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, it is estimated that the receipts will amount to $381,000,000 and that the expenditures will be $372,000,000, showing an excess of $9,000,000 in favor of the Government.
The attention of Congress is earnestly invited to the necessity of a thorough revision of our revenue system. Our internal-revenue laws and impost system should be so adjusted as to bear most heavily on articles of luxury, leaving the necessaries of life as free from taxation as may be consistent with the real wants of the Government, economically administered. ”

“ Companies already formed, if they do not desire the benefit of a stamp—the best, and indeed at present the only security against the forger—may be called upon to pay their quota, corresponding to the number of their shares, from the fund of their Parliamentary deposit. New companies, again, might be imperatively required to issue stamps; and we confidently believe that no tax whatever would be more cheerfully assented to. Let the currency doctors do what they will, they never can drive scrip from the market. ”

“ For the year 1884 these expenditures averaged three dollars and forty cents per head of the entire population, and of this amount an average of about fifty cents per head could only be obtained from any internal taxation, and this mainly through the indirect agency of licenses and stamps, and not by any direct assessment. The balance of required revenue was obtained from a special tax on some set manufacture, and from export and import duties. ”