National Stamp-Tax Laws and State Instrumentalities

The rule that the national government may not burden the governmental agencies of the states by taxation is generally familiar to students of constitutional law. An interesting phase of the development of this doctrine is found in judicial and administrative rulings on the immunity of state agencies under the national stamp-tax laws.The Early History of the Stamp Tax as Applied to State Judicial Documents. Stamps had been used as a means of securing revenue for nearly two centuries when such a method of taxation was suggested for the United States in 1797. The stamp tax originated in Holland in 1624, when, during a time of “dire necessity,†the States-General offered a reward to anyone who would invent a new kind of tax, and someone proposed “the requiring of stamps on documents and writings having a legal operation or forming necessary steps in suits in the law courts.†In 1694, England adopted this method of raising revenue. Congress first resorted to the stamp tax on legal instruments in acts of 1797 and 1813.