Wednesday 18 July 2012

The answer is........

I love it when you pose a question and someone out there is always clever enough or curious enough to know/find out.
On my previous blog I was curious to know why my mother's grocery account contained a tuppenny stamp when it was paid each month. Paul from Waterway routes came up with part of the story (see comments on previous blog), but my lovely sailing and caravan mates came up with the definitive answer so over to Beardy Chas and Liz:

Hi G & J
       This subject intrigued me, I can remember as a youngster, my dad sticking 'tuppenny' stamps onto receipts when people paid him for work he had done for them, but I had no clue why, so I have just googled it, and the answer was as follows:- It appears that the requirement for putting stamps on receipts was brought in by the 1891 Stamp Act in order to raise money for the Government. The 1920 Finance Act specified that any receipt for something worth £2.00 or over should have a two pence stamp attached. If it didn’t then the receipt was apparently not valid in a court of law(1). Stamps on receipts were abolished by the 1964 Finance Act.

So there you and I have the definitive answer!!!

Beardy Chas

I find this fascinating; maybe it's something that could be re-introduced in these desolate times - I know, I know tax and more tax, but wouldn't you be prepared to pay a, say, 50 pence 'legitimisation tax' on your plumbers or chippies bill rather than see a massive rise on VAT if it stops us going down the Greek (or should that be Grecian) route? It really wouldn't seem painful and it could raise a lot of revenue. Woops, sorry, I don't do politics.

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