Stamp Duty
a tax or duty imposed on pieces of parchment or paper, on which many species of legal instruments are written. In Great Britain stamp duties on legal instruments used to be chiefly secured by prohibiting the reception of them in evidence unless they bore the stamp required by the law. By the Customs and Inland Revenue Act (1888), however, the not stamping of bonds, conveyances, leases, mortgages, or settlements, is held to be an offense punishable by a fine of $50. The internal revenue acts of the United States of 1862, and subsequent years, required stamps for a great variety of subjects, under severe penalties in the way of fines and invalidating of written instruments; stamps for tobacco are still in use. See TAX.