The accounting methods for tax collectors that existed in Russia, based on a payment booklet and the complex written reporting inseparable from it, proved in practice to be inconvenient, especially in areas with semi-literate and illiterate populations. Settlements in such areas were in most cases made "from memory" and "on trust", and the payment booklets often remained unused and were even destroyed. In that case, after paying monetary dues, the taxpayer received no reliable token confirming payment of the levies. Confusion often arose in the accounts, and supervision of the collectors' own activities became difficult.
In view of this, the former justice of the peace mediator of Podolia Governorate, M.A. Skibinsky, proposed introducing for the illiterate a stamp-based system of tax administration that would eliminate arithmetic entries and be understandable to everyone. He justified his proposal by noting that the rural population had long been accustomed to settling with landowners for the use of land by means of so-called "tickets", which in some cases had existed for decades and even centuries. In settlements between taxpayers and the collector, Skibinsky replaced handwritten tickets with printed stamps.
In the design of the stamps, to make them understandable to the illiterate, all the features of monetary value long familiar to peasants were combined: stamps depicting coins of less than one ruble were given a round shape, while the others were made rectangular. The coloring of the stamps matched the color of the monetary unit depicted by the stamp: the one-ruble stamp was yellow, the three-ruble stamp green, the five-ruble stamp blue, the ten-ruble stamp red; silver coins were indicated in gray, copper in brown. Also, to distinguish the number of rubles and kopecks, the corresponding number of strokes was printed on the stamps.
To control collectors on the one hand and to protect the interests of taxpayers on the other, each stamp was given a personal assignment by indicating on the reverse the number of the householder to whom it belonged. All stamps of one taxpayer were placed together on a single sheet intended only for him and secured by a separate numbering. Next to the stamps on the same sheet, the taxpayer's first name, patronymic, and surname were indicated, along with all taxable items belonging to him according to his household list and the levies due from him. Thus, a personal tax sheet was obtained, on which were grouped all tax demands made on the taxpayer, all grounds for these demands, documentary tokens (stamps) protecting the taxpayer from repeated collection of the same levies, and all the taxpayer's personal accounts with the tax collector. The sheets of all taxpayers under the collector's jurisdiction were bound into a corded, so-called "control book", which was kept by the collector.
Tax stamps were used in the collection of direct taxes from members of the taxable estate living in rural areas. Initially, as an experiment, they were introduced in certain rural communities of Podolia Governorate (Ukraine), which confirmed the convenience of their use.
In practice, tax stamps began to be used from 1893. They were introduced in 44 uyezds of 21 governorates and in the Turkestan Region. The benefit of introducing tax stamps was recognized at congresses of tax inspectors of the Turkestan Region and Olonets Governorate, as well as by a number of provincial and district institutions for peasant affairs and by tax inspectors of many uyezds.