Tax 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. ”

“ An external tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost, and other charges on the commodity, and when it is offered to sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it: they are not obliged to pay it. But an internal tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The Stamp Act says, we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant, nor recover debts ”

“ 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. ”

“ One finds it hard, indeed, to see how the collection of the tax would be workable as an administrative problem if a broker were free to choose between stamping his own copy of a document and stamping the duplicate delivered as a memorandum to his customer. The taxing officials could never learn through an inspection of the files whether the mandate of the statute had been followed or ignored. One of the major merits of a stamp tax is to make the evidence of payment visible and almost automatic. ”

“ One cause of difficulty in the case arises from the use of stamps as one of the means of segregating and identifying the property intended to be exported. It is the form in which many taxes and duties are imposed and liquidated; stamps being seldom used, except for the purpose of levying a duty or tax. But we must regard things rather than names. A stamp may be used, and, in the case before us, we think it is used, for quite a different purpose from that of imposing a tax or duty: indeed, it is used for the very contrary purpose,-that of securing exemption from a tax or duty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If an indirect tax, it is a stamp tax on documents not required to be made under state law in order to render the sale valid, and congress has no power to require a written memorandum to be made of transactions within the state for the purpose of placing a stamp thereon. It is not a 'privilege tax,' within the meaning of that term, because there is no privilege other than that which every man has to transact his own business in his own house or in his own office under such regulations as he may choose to adopt ”

“ So little in evidence is an external tax that the people are sometimes beguiled into questioning whether the producer or the consumer pays the tax. An internal tax, levied on distilled liquors, whiskey, rum, brandy, and gin, was no more a novelty in the early days of the Constitution than was a stamp-tax in 1765. Being accustomed to having it levied by the local government in each instance, it became objectionable when laid by the superior power. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania had used an excise as a means of raising revenue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The comptroller does not contend that any document signed by the brokers in New York is subject to the tax. To the contrary, there is a concession that the stamp taxes applicable to such transactions are those imposed by the New York statute (New York Tax Law (Consol. Laws c. 60) , § 270) and by a statute of the United States (26 U.S.C. § 901 (3) , 26 USCA § 901 (3) , which are substantially the same as the stamp tax law of Florida. ”

“ Idleness and Pride tax with a heavier hand than Kings and Parliaments; if we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter.
Six months later, when the loud and fierce protest of his fellow-countrymen against the Stamp Act had reached his ear, and convinced him that they were more likely to light camp-fires than candles, he held a very different language. Asked, during his famous examination before the House of Commons, whether he thought that the people of America would submit to pay the Stamp Tax, if it were moderated, he replied, "No, never, unless compelled by force of arms." ”

“ Connected, however, with the various stamps now in use in this country is the necessity of teaching to our youth their use and application to banks, custom-houses, railroads, post-offices, pawnbrokers, and, in fact, as stamp tax to every trade, business, and department of government.
In several of our commercial colleges an actual stamp department is invented, and mock-banks, custom-houses, steamboat-offices, post-offices, &c., are fitted up for the purpose of familiarizing youth with their use in the various mercantile and governmental departments of the country. ”

“ In the case before us the stamp is distinctly for the purpose of revenue, and not by way of compensation for services rendered, so that the question is whether revenue can be collected from exports by changing the form of the tax from a tax on the article exported to a tax on the bill of lading which evidences the export. ”

“ The fact that Congress has not graduated the stamp tax on bills of lading does not affect the question of power. By a graduated system, although the tax is called a tax on 'the vellum, parchment, or paper' upon which transactions are written, or by which they are evidenced, a burden may be cast upon exports sufficient to check or retard them, and which will directly conflict with the constitutional provision that no tax or duty shall be laid thereon. The question of power is not to be determined by the amount of the burden attempted to be cast. ”

“ The Stamp Act was a direct tax laid upon the whole American people by Parliament, a legislative body in which they were not represented. The British government had no tyrannical purpose in devising this tax. A stamp duty had already been suggested in 1755 by William Shirley, royal governor of Massachusetts, a worthy man and much more of a favourite with the people than most of his class. ”

“ If, for instance, Congress may place a stamp duty of 10 cents on bills of lading on goods to be exported, it is because it has power to do so; and if it has power to impose this amount of stamp duty it has like power to impose any sum in the way of stamp duty which it sees fit. And it needs but a moment's reflection to show that thereby it can as effectually place a burden upon exports as though it placed a tax directly upon the articles exported. ”

“ If there was a rule of public policy giving rise to the assumption that stamp taxes relating to express companies could not be shifted, it becomes impossible in reason to understand why, when the taxation was changed by the act of 1863 from a stamp tax to one on gross receipts, the express companies should have been brought within the proviso to § 80 of the act of 1862. ”

“ Stamp Taxes on Drafts, Checks and Promissory Notes [1]
The Revenue Act of 1918 imposes a tax on drafts and checks, payable otherwise than at sight or on demand, upon their acceptance or delivery, whichever is prior, within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and on promissory notes, except those listed below as exempt, and on each renewal of the same. The term “United States” includes the states, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Alaska.
The tax is at the rate of 2 cents on each $100 or fractional part thereof. On amounts not in excess of $100 the tax is 2 cents. ”

“ Upon the supposition thus made, its real character would require a tax of twice the amount of that indicated upon its face, and if the stamp be too small, the instrument is absolutely void from its inception. [10] In the language of the statute, it shall be 'deemed invalid and of no effect.'
Is every man to whom a paper in the form of a bill of exchange is presented, bound to inquire whether there are not outside circumstances that may affect its nature? ”

“ The first proposition is unnecessary to be considered, since, even although it be conceded that the act of Congress imposes on the express company the duty of paying the one-cent stamp tax, this admission would not be at all decisive of the cause unless also it be ascertained under the second proposition, that the act of Congress also forbids the express company from shifting the burden of the tax by means of an increase of rates. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A. The parliament have supposed it, by claiming a right to make tax-laws for America; I think it impossible.
Q. Would the repeal of the stamp act be any discouragement of your manufactures? Will the people that have begun to manufacture decline it?
A. Yes, I think they will; especially if, at the same time, the trade is opened again, so that remittances can be easily made. I have known several instances that make it probable. In the war before last, tobacco being low, and making little remittance, the people of Virginia went generally into family-manufactures. ”

“ The question presented is whether an action lies by the United States to recover the amount of a stamp tax payable under the war revenue act of 1898 upon the execution of a conveyance.
If the statute creates an obligation to pay the tax, and does not provide an exclusive remedy, the action must be regarded as well brought. ”

“ Yet another ground on which the owners of stock are said to be deprived of their property without due process of law is the adoption of the face value of the shares as the basis of the tax. One of the stocks was worth $30.75 a share of the face value of $100, the other $172. The inequality of the tax, so far as actual values are concerned, is manifest. But, here again equality in this sense has to yield to practical considerations and usage. There must be a fixed and indisputable mode of ascertaining a stamp tax. In another sense, moreover, there is equality. ”

“ Friend has a plan to submit to the Chancellor by which the abolition of the stamp may be accomplished without sacrifice to the Exchequer, but that I will not go into at present. But this year's surplus is gone, and next year's surplus is gone with it; and you have already passed a Bill to double the income- tax. And it is a mistake to suppose that you will obtain double the sum by simply doubling the tax. Many persons make an average of their incomes, and make a return accordingly. The average will not be sustained at the bidding of Parliament ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”