STAMP. An impression made by order of the government, on paper, which must be used in reducing certain contracts to writ ing, for the purpose of raising a revenue. See Stark. Ev. ; 1 Phill. Ev. 444.
A paper bearing an impression or device authorized by law and adopted for attach ment to some subject of duty or excise.
The term in American law is used often in distinction from stamped paper, which latter meaning, as well as that of the device or im pression itself, is included in the broader sig nification of the word.
Stamps or stamped paper are prepared un der the direction of officers of the govern ment, and sold at a price equal to the duty or excise to be collected. The stamps are affix ed and cancelled; and where stamped paper is used, one use obviously prevents a second use. The Internal Revenue acts of 1862 and subsequent years required stamps to be affix ed to a great variety of subjects, under se vere penalties in the way of• fines,r and also under penalty of invalidating written instru ments and rendering them incapable of being produced in evidence. The statutes under which these stamps were required had been repealed•from time to time, and that method of raising revenue was discontinued except in the ease of tobacco and possibly some oth er articles. The necessity of raising addition al revenue to meet the expenditures required for the Spanish-American war of 1898 led to the passage of what was known as the War Revenue Act of June 13, 1898, under which stamps were required on checks, drafts, notes, mortgages, and other instruments.
The stamp tax on a memorandum or con tract of sale of a certificate of stock imposed by this act is not unconstitutional as a di rect tax on property ; Thomas v. U. S., 192 U. S. Sup. Ct. 305, 48 L. Ed. 481.
By Act March 2, 1901, the schedule of the act was amended by omitting all such in struments;' it took effect at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1901. The entire sched ule-A was repealed April 12, 1902, saving the effect of the act as to stamping instruments while it was in force; Sackett v. McCaffrey, 131 Fed. 219, 65 C. C. A. 205.
An action lies by the United States to re cover the amount of a stamp tax upon a deed of lands under this act ; and the penal ties provided in the act for non-compliance therewith are not exclusive of collection by suit. sin action lies wherever there is a sum due, either certain or readily reduced to cer tainty; provisions for penalties do not neces sarily exclude personal liability ; they were provided to induce payment of the tax and not as a substitute for payment ; U. S. v. Chamberlin, S. 250, 31 Sup. Ct. 155, 55 L. Ed. 204.
Instruments not duly stamped are not void or inadmissible in evidence, in the absence of a fraudulent intent ; McGovern v. Hoes back, 53 Pa. 176 ; Rheinstrom v. Cone, 26 Wis. 163, 7 Am. Rep. 51; Moore v. Moore, 47 N. Y. 467, 7 Am. Rep. 466; in the absence of affirmative proof, a fraudulent intent will not be presumed ; cases supra. Where objec
tion is made to the admission of a writing for lack of a revenue stamp, the burden is on the objector to show that the stamp was omitted with intent to evade the law ; Ohio River Junction R. Co. v. Pennsylvania Co., 222 Pa. 573, 72 Atl. 271. Where a United States act required a revenue stamp to be at tached to a written instrument, and none was attached, the instrument is admissible in evidence after the repeal of the act with out a reservation of the right to demand the tax when omitted during the operation of the act or to enforce the penalties or forfeiture for such omission ; id.
If a foreign instrument is, by the laws of the country where it is made, void for want of a stamp, it cannot be enforced in England. But if those laws merely require that it must be stamped before it can be received in evi dence there, it is admissible in England with out a stamp; 5 Exch. 279. The absence of an English revenue stamp from a power of attorney does not render the instrument in admissible in evidence in an American court'; Linton v. Ins. Co., 104 Fed. 584, 44 C. C. A. 54.
Under the previous revenue acts imposing stamp taxes the question arose as to the ex act legal effect of the requirement that an in strument should be stamped, and whether if an unstamped instrument was wholly invalid the law made it necessary to have certain contracts in writing which would otherwise be valid by parol, as for instance, the con tract of insurance. The suggestion that the passage of these laws requiring a stamp might make it necessary that such contracts should be in writing was made in Western Massachusetts Ins. Co. v. Duffey, 2 Kan. 347; but this doctrine is said not to be well found ed ; 1 May, Ins., 3d ed. § 25 ; and in New York it was held that the validity of a parol con tract for insurance was not affected by the stamp act, that, if in writing, it would re quire to be stamped, but it might be oral; Fish v. Cottenet, 44 N. Y. 538, 4 Am. Rep. 715. The power of congress to declare un stamped instruments wholly void was serious ly doubted; Latham v. Smith, 45 I11. 29; and the doubt went so far as to deny the constitutional right of the federal govern ment to determine rules of evidence by which the state courts should be governed; May, Ins. § 85 ; Green v. Holway, 101 Mass. 243, 3 Am. Rep. 339. Some of the cases bold that congress cannot prohibit the making of con tracts permitted by state laws, and that to declare them void is not a proper penalty for the enforcement of tax laws ; Cooley, Const. Lim., 6th ed. 592 ; Moore v. Quirk, 105 Mass. 49, 7 Am. Rep. 499 ; Warren v. Paul, 22 Ind. 276 ; Smith v. Short, 40 Ala. 385 ; Jones v. Keep's Estate, 19 Wis. 369 ; Knox v. Rossi, 25 Nev. 96, 57 Pac. 179, 83 Am. St. Rep. 566, (48 L. R. A. 305 and note), as to the effect of omission to stamp instruments.