Revenue Stamps
19 Aug 2015 - Revenue stamps (also knows as Tax stamp or Fiscal stamp) are generally issued by International, National, Local Governments, their Licensees or Agents, or different kinds of official bodies to collect taxes and fees on objects such as documents, alcoholic drinks, medicine, playing cards, different licences such as for hunting, registration and many other things. Typically the businesses purchase these stamps from the governments and attach them to items on sale as tax payments or in the case of documents as part of filling out the form.
For instances Documentary Revenue stamps , although the least interacted, are used to collect fees on receipts, insurance places and power of attorney, by affixing them to these documents. Proprietary Revenue stamps are fixtures on tobacco products and alcoholic drinks. These stamps sometimes called Taxpaid tobacco stamps are affixed to packs of cigarettes, while wide, strip-shaped bottle stamps were affixed on tops of alcoholic drink bottles. Proprietary Revenue stamps were used to collect taxes on manufactured goods.
Just like postage stamps, Revenue Stamps take many forms, they can be impressed, adhesive or un-gummed, perforated or imperforate, printed or embossed and of any size. In some countries they are as detailed in design as their banknotes and usually made of the same type of paper. In some cases due the high value of these Revenue Stamps, they may contain security devices to prevent counterfeiting. In some countries, postage stamps were often used as Revenue Stamps.
Some countries such as United Kingdom have been a heavy user of Revenue Stamps. In fact, revenue stamps were used in UK even before the postage stamps, in mid eighteenth century. The last British revenue stamp was used in 1997 to collect TV licence fees.
In the same period, the first revenue stamps in America (also knows as First Federal Issue) were used to collect taxes on alcoholic drinks. These stamps were known as Supervisors’ Seals, embossed rather than printed designs. The Revenue act of 1862, authorised adhesive stamps to finance the Civil War. This practice continued to be used long after the war as a means to collect taxes. Revenue stamps were also used on coca leave, potatoes, flour and in some cases even “prepared smoking opium”. Other examples include the use of these stamps for car tax (affixed inside the windshields) during World War II and Boating Tax stamps in 1960s. Between 1939 and 1950, Trailer Permit stamps were issued to collect fees on trailers that entered National parks and monuments. Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation stamps (also knows as Duck stamps) were used to raise money for wetland preservation.