On 1/17/06, Suresh Ramasubramanian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Badri Natarajan wrote: > > > But yes, it is a tax on transactions by the government - big revenue > > earner too. The use of stamp duty is decreasing though - as I recall, only > > two things (under English law) are still subject to it - sales of > > land/immovable property, and sales of shares. > > And I think notarized affidavits or depositions get a revenue stamp > stuck on them, besides the signed / sealed / delivered thing.
Now that I think about it, the only thing I see around here (in the US) that has a tax stamp on it is imported liquor. I sometimes hear quiet tales of bootlegged untaxed liquor smuggled down from Canada, and it won't have a tax stamp, that's for sure. I've never heard of anyone bothering to forge one of those. The usual dodge is to save your old bottles and refill them with the bootlegged stuff, so if the ATF ever check, the bottles are clean. Of course, the last time I heard of such goings on was over 10 years ago, so maybe the bar owners are getting more sophisticated. Regulating the paper as well as stamp is an interesting twist, though. Sometimes I'll see a notary with both a raised seal stamp as well as an ink stamp for documents; the document is registered in a book, and the ink part has the notary's signature. So it takes more than just the paper to provide authentication, there's an audit path that can be followed to verify that a supposedly notarized doc is valid. Miss a check on that audit path, and the doc loses its standing. Anne Marie -- Moral Indignation is Jealousy with a halo. H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914)
