Of All Things To Tax... Matches??

I was just thinking, of all the things for the US to tax back in the day, why MATCHES??? Playing cards seem harmless, too (well, unless you are a habitual gambler!)

What was the USIR thought about taxing matches?

It all goes back to the Civil War. You can get a lot more about it on the internet, but the Scott Catalog refers to it with this statement:




Here's a link with more information:

http://www.rdhinstl.com/mm/mma1.htm

They also tried taxing potatoes for a bit too, but that ran afoul of the courts I believe.

The same Revenue Act is what also got period photographs of that day taxed with revenue stamps, too.

That's another object that seems strange to tax, photographs! Perhaps they were though of as a "luxury" back then? Perhaps the playing cards were taxed because they were "entertainment"?

Here's a period excerpt from an 1898 newspaper (The Providence Journal) that was reflecting upon the Tax Stamps and the various items that the stamps were required to be placed upon. Unfortunately, the article goes one for paragraphs upon paragraphs and would be prohibitively long to post here, but an applicable excerpt is provided below which provides the general sentiment that was shown 114 years ago!

That article reminded me that documents needed stamps, too! Thing is, today we still pay, only we pay a "fee" for certain legal paperwork.

(You know what? I am starting to think maybe, just maybe, I asked this question before... short term memory...)

As I said in my earlier post, the excerpt from that Providence Journal Newspaper was way too large to post in its entirety, but it started out as explaining that before "things" were identified for taxation in 1862, people's occupations were taxed instead at the rate of $5 to $200. Adjusting for inflation, in the 21st century, those figures roughly compare to $108 to $4315 in today's money!

In some cases, the taxes upon certain occupations failed, however, as noted in the second column of the following excerpt, does anyone know what a GAMPILLAEROSTATEUR was? It sounds like maybe a trapeze artist or something similar, but I can't find the word in use today.

Sounds like regular state sales taxes took over. I wonder if all these jobs and things were taxed at different rates then?

The French word aerostateur relates to ballooning and probably refers to a balloonist. The Gampill part, who know? The Gampille is a river in France, but that's probably not relevant here.

If you google the word gampillaerostateur, the only thing which comes up is SCF and this thread.

That's funny!

For Nells250, there were no general [ad valorem] state sales taxes until 1930. But states taxed specific items and services with revenue stamps in the 19th Century, in some cases side by side with Federal revenues.

I think that is what seems odd to modern folks, NO STATE SALES TAX! Sounds so strange, doesn't it!? ;-) ;-)

If there's a member from New York City here, they can tell you the total "take" from both a STATE and a CITY sales tax. I don't know the current numbers. In addition, there's a "MCTD" commuter tax on some items. Yikes!

FYI, the tax on matches brought in the largest amount of revenue after the combination of the revenue stamped paper and adhesives used to pay the tax on checks. In the period from 1862-1883, everyone used matches every day, it was an essential necessity. Even at a tax of one cent per hundred it brought in a vast amount of revenue.