Commercial Overprint Society of Great Britain
Vol. 1 No. 2; August 1, 2003
Great Britain—Receipt Duty
by Lawrence Armitage
Stamp Duty was introduced into England in the Year 1694, by an Act of Parliament (5 & 6 Will. & Mary c21) "An Act for granting to their Majesties several Duties upon Vellum, Parchment, and Paper, for four Years, towards carrying the War against FRANCE", but it was not until the 1st September 1783 (23 Geo.III c19) that duty was to be levied on a written or printed document for money paid or received, known as a receipt. The duty was to be 2d for any monetary transaction over £2 and not more the £20. Any transaction for £20 and over bore a duty of 4d. For this duty, embossed dies were provided incorporating the word RECEIPT.
Eight years later a new three-tier scale was introduced by the Act 31 Geo.III c25 to commence 1st August 1791:
| Value | Duty |
|---|---|
| Above £2 and under £20 | 2d. |
| Above £20 and under £50 | 4d. |
| Above £50 | 6d. |
The next Act (5.7.1795: 35 Geo.III c55) amended the duty for values above £50 as follows:
| Value | Duty |
|---|---|
| Above £50 and under £100 | 6d. |
| Above £100 and under £500 | 1/- |
| Above £500 | 2/6 |
Duties that had gone before 1803 were repealed by the Act 43 Geo.III c126 enacting a new scale as from the 10th October 1803:
| Value | Duty |
|---|---|
| Above £2 and under £10 | 2d. |
| Above £10 and under £20 | 4d. |
| Above £20 and under £50 | 8d. |
| Above £50 and under £100 | 1/- |
| Above £100 and under £200 | 2/- |
| Above £200 and under £500 | 3/- |
| Above £500 | 5/- |
Two more Duty Acts (1804, 44 Geo.III c98 and 1808. 48 Geo.III c149) were enacted, with no charge for the Receipt scale. As from 31st August 1815, by the Act 55 Geo.III c184, a new scale of duties was introduced:
| Value | Duty |
|---|---|
| Above £2 and under £5 | 2d. |
| Above £5 and under £10 | 3d. |
| Above £10 and under £20 | 6d. |
| Above £20 and under £50 | 1/- |
| Above £50 and under £100 | 1/6 |
| Above £100 and under £200 | 2/6 |
| Above £200 and under £300 | 3/- |
| Above £300 and under £500 | 4/- |
| Above £500 and under £1000 | 7/6 |
| Above £1000 | 10/- |
For the 1783 Act specific embossed dies were made with the inscription 'RECEIPT' or 'FOR RECEIPT'. In 1828 the embossed RECEIPT dies incorporated an additional statement 'UNDER' together with a monetary figure, such as:
The Act 1853 (17 Victoria c59) introduced the flat rate of 1d for receipts to the value of £2 and above, effective 10th October 1853. A 1d. embossed RECEIPT die was struck as the lowest receipt duty had previously been 2d. A further change on the mode of recording the duty came by Section III:
"The Duties of One Penny by this Act granted on Receipts and on Drafts or Orders for the Payment of Money respectively may be denoted either by a Stamp impressed upon the Paper whereon any such Instrument is written or by an adhesive Stamp affixed thereto, and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue shall provide Stamps of both Descriptions for the Purpose of denoting the said Duties."
The decision to introduce adhesive revenue stamps was a follow-on from the experience gained with the introduction of the 1d postage stamp in 1840, and the ease with which it could be acquired by the public.
All Acts relating to the Receipt Duty imposed a variety of penalties for non-compliance. The most important of such penalties involved the public at large being Section IV of the 1853 Act:
"In any Case where an adhesive Stamp shall be used for the Purpose aforesaid on any Receipt or upon any Draft or Order respectively chargeable with the Duty of One Penny by this Act, the Person by whom such Receipt shall be given or such Draft or Order signed or made shall, before the Instrument shall be delivered out of his Hands, Custody, or Power, cancel or obliterate the Stamp so used, by writing thereon his Name or the Initial Letters of his Name so and in such a manner as to show clearly and distinctly that such Stamp has been made use of, and so that the same may not be again used; and if any Person who shall write or give any such Receipt or Discharge or make or sign any such Draft or Order with any adhesive Stamp thereon, shall not bona fide in manner aforesaid effectually cancel or obliterate such Stamp, he shall forfeit the Sum of Ten Pounds."
It was also important for the duty to be executed correctly as no such receipt without the appropriate stamp could be pleaded or given in evidence in any court, or admitted in any court as an acknowledgement of any debt being paid.
To obviate forgery, the printers Thomas De La Rue Ltd. by experimentation produced stamps in what is known as double-fugitive ink: the inks run if wetted by chemical solutions or water and collectors of such revenue stamps should take care when removing such stamp from a document.
The first two adhesive stamps issued were of a larger size than the postage stamps in use in 1853, and carried the inscription RECEIPT 1d (light blue) and DRAFT 1d (ochre) 'Draft' and 'Receipt' was incorporated into a 1d (lilac) stamp issued in 1855: DRAFT PAYABLE ON DEMAND OR RECEIPT, followed by a 1d (lilac) INLAND REVENUE in May 1860. The 1867 issue for INLAND REVENUE conformed to the size of the postage stamp.
From time to time confusion arose for the users of these stamps as to the correct duty stamp to use, and to simplify the accounting between the Post Office and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue a dual-purpose 1d lilac stamp similar in design to the 1867 Inland Revenue stamp with a border of dots, inscribed POSTAGE & REVENUE was issued on the 12th July 1881. With the issue of the dual-purpose stamp, unused revenue stamps were allowed to be used for the payment of postage, hence those revenue issues being listed in Catalogues for postage stamps. From 1st January 1883 the embossed Revenue stamps with denominations 2d, 3d, 6d, 9d, 1/-, 2/- and 2/6 were included for postal use.
The word 'Revenue', first added to the 1881 1d (S.G.172) Queen Victoria stamp, was thereafter incorporated with 'Postage' on all Great Britain definitive and some commemorative issues with a face value of up to 2/6d until the 1967 definitive 'Machin' issue, when both the words Postage and Revenue cease to appear.
The early trial experiments in perforating stamps carried out by a firm of engineers, D. Napier & Son, led to the company being given the contract to make the "Archer" perforating machine. The first machine made by Napier was assigned to perforate the less demanding RECEIPT and DRAFT., S.G.F1 & F2, fiscals. The alignment of stamps horizontally and vertically on the plates was not very good and with the introduction of the perforating machine this showed up with perforations cutting from time to time into the stamp design. Noticeable are the early printings being issued for sale with uneven margins.
Part III s.34 of the 1920 Finance Act changed the Stamp Duty chargeable under the heading "Receipt given for or upon the payment of money amounting to £2 or upwards" in the First Schedule to the principal Act, to two pence instead of one penny.
The increase in administrative costs for the 2d "Receipt" duty since 1920 made it a candidate for abolition (along with many other duties) with the introduction of decimal currency in 1971. Accordingly, Paragraph 2(b) of the Finance Act 1970 abolished, as from 1st February 1971, the duty of 2d. specified in Schedule I to the Stamp Act 1891 under the heading beginning "Receipt".
This article was originally published in The Revenue Journal of Great Britain Vol. VII No.1 June 1996.
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