10-Cent Trans-Mississippi Used As Revenue On Document

This was a nice acquisition. The 2-cent Trans-Mississipis are findable on bank checks, and usually sell in the $100-200 range, but the other denominations are quite scarce used as revenues. This one is on a marriage license and certificate, paying the correct 10-cent tax. You can see the foxed impression of the stamp at top where it laid when the document was folded.

Nice piece! I find it interesting that the woman's name was entered, but both her father's and mother's name are listed as "unknown". Perhaps adopted?

Why would any type of tax be required on a marriage license? Is this still practiced anywhere?

Marriage License Fee: The fee for a Wisconsin marriage license varies by county and is required at the time of application.

EDIT: A 'fee' from the government is a polite name for 'tax.'

Fees and taxes are not the same. Taxes raise revenue, fees recoup the cost of a service.
Marriage licenses were taxed during the Civil War at 10 cents which was quickly lowered to 5 cents. It was one of several that were restarted during the Spanish-American War. Wars are horrible things, but they have been very good to revenue stamp collectors over the years.

To expand a bit on Revcollector's excellent explanation. Wars create the need for revenue. The government instituted a broad schedule of federal-level taxes on all sorts of documents and products. It is especially obvious during the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War I. Bank checks and drafts are some of the most commonly encountered documents. The marriage certificate above shows the federal tax on marriage licenses to raise money for Spanish American War - one of many taxed items in the 1898-1902 era.

There is no current federal tax on marriage licenses, but as KGB's post opens the issue, there could be additional local or state application fees then and now, which would vary by jurisdiction. They are not evident on this document and are not germane to its anaylsis (which is the incredible rarity of a high-value Trans Miss stamp to improperly pay a revenue tax). That is one of the pitfalls in understanding any postal or fiscal item - there is a need to know the regulations in place at the time and be careful not to evaluate a 115 year old item on current rules and regulations.

The key to understanding the tax here is that there was a general 10¢ tax on certificates, a marriage license being an example of one type of certificate. The rationale behind taxing certificates is that frequently such certificates were presented in court proceedings (or in this case, marriages were registered in an office located typically in court houses) with financial implications. Another type of certificate that is often encountered in the earlier Civil War era was the trustee's certificate physically located on mortgage bonds, certifying that this is one of a number of bonds being issued. In such a case, this was the guarantee of authenticity on a financial obligation. The bonds were typically also taxed, but the trustee's certificate always demanded a separate tax and stamp, which in many cases was imprinted on the bond (the separate tax on the bond also had a separate stamp or imprinted stamp to show that the tax was paid). If not properly stamped, such documents could not be entered in evidence in a legal dispute before the court, the point of enforcement of the payment of the taxes due.

Is it also correct that these revenue measures can be distinguished from the 1765 Stamp Tax in that the latter was confiscatory (not funding a war) and not voted upon by representatives of the taxed populace? If not then there would be considerable irony in America having a revolution started in part by the Stamp Tax, then a few years later, doing the same thing to itself.

revcollector, revenue is used to do what? Recoup the costs of services like trash pickup, provide a fire department, &c.?

Trash pickups, the fire dept, etc are paid by taxes. Fees pay for the cost of the specific service involved. For a marriage license it would recoup the time and materials costs involved.

All documents requiring stamps to pay taxes were not legal or valid without them. Technically this marriage license was not legal or valid either, since a revenue stamp was not used to pay the tax. The money went to the Post Office Dept, not the Internal Revenue. If it ever went into court it would not be accepted until a revenue stamp was placed on it, although since the intent to pay was there no one would have incurred a penalty for an untaxed document. Since this document was supposed to be returned to the County Clerk within 10 days (I assume to be recorded), I am not sure why the revenue stamp was not required by him. It's possible that the clerk could not tell one stamp from another and did not really look at it.

Really? I didn't know that, I would have thought they all went into a single 'pot'. Most have been quite the bookkeeping chore to keep all the various fees separate and then redistributed them to pay for specific services.
Don

BTW, the US began collecting taxes using stamps starting in 1797, so by 1899 it was an old story. Stamps continued to be used by the federal government to collect a wide range of taxes until 1971.

This discussion reminds me of when I had to bail my brother's dog out of the county kennel. They told me what the fee would be and I was sorely tempted to tell them I was not the one who 'kidnapped' the dog from our neighborhood. (I was in fact grateful that the dog was safe.) I told them that I preferred to view my payment as a donation. ('Ransom' would have been just as accurate.)

I would submit that the US began collecting taxes using stamps from the end of September, 1794 with the $5 denominated embossed stamp placed on licenses for the sale of wine (almost certainly of foreign origin) and foreign distilled spirits. Or, earlier still the Act of April 1, 1791, prescribed the use of embossed seals on the certificates that accompanied imported tea, effective April 1, 1791. This act specified that effective July 1, 1791 certificates were required for distilled spirits, both domestically produced and imported. The tax on the domestic distilled spirits would result in the Whiskey Rebellion. The use of certificates with the embossed seals was extended to imported wine effective July 1, 1792. These so-called supervisor's seals were not monetarily denominated, nor did the certificates state the amount of import duty or internal tax that was paid. In some cases the certificate only specified that the importer or distiller had posted bond with a promise to pay. Regardless, these embossed seals are the earliest US tax "stamps."

Adding some more perspective to the above discussion of fee for service. Both the Customs House in New York beginning in 1887 and the Consular Service beginning in 1905 used stamps to show payment of the charge for executing a wide variety of legal documents. In the case of the Customs House, they did not show payment of import duties. These truly were fees for the service of Customs and Consular officials. And the moneys indeed went to the accounts of the respective agencies. They did not go into the general treasury.