We’ve always had them, according to the Smithsonian Institution:
0.25¢ per pound of butter? Outrageous! Lots of booze taxes (from the Postal Service):
What’s interesting is that companies were allowed to make their own, approved tax stamps:
Don’t forget the tonic and sarsaparilla:
Car taxes have been with us for a long time:
Don’t think there are playing card taxes anymore:
Taxes! AAAIEEE!!!
mikethemadbiologist
In New Orleans in the early ’60s, I would see liquor bottles with a Mississippi Bootleg Liquor tax stamp, necessary for transport across the then dry state of Mississippi.
When we bought our first house in Massachusetts we had to buy a stamp to file the deed with the county registry. Our lawyer explained that while the stamp tax imposed by England was one of the causes of the revolution, enacting a stamp tax was also among the first acts of the commonwealth after the revolution.
One of the more interesting taxes was the tax on slaves engaged in certain professions throughout the slave south. If one set up a slave as a blacksmith, one had to pay a tax. I learned about this is a New York Times philately column back when the New York Times covered philately as the tax was paid by buying an appropriate stamp. It isn’t something they talk about much these days.