The accounting methods for tax collectors that existed in Russia—based on a payment booklet and the complex written reporting inseparable from it—proved inconvenient in practice, especially in areas with a semi-literate or illiterate population. Settlements in such areas were in most cases made “from memory” and “on trust,” while payment booklets often remained unused and were even destroyed. In such circumstances, after paying monetary dues, the taxpayer received no reliable sign confirming payment of the levies. Confusion frequently arose in the accounts, and supervision over the collectors’ own activities was hampered.
In view of this, the former justice of the peace mediator of Podolsk Governorate, M.A. Skibinsky, proposed introducing a stamp-based system of tax administration for the illiterate, which would eliminate arithmetic записи 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 “chits,” which in some cases had existed for decades and even centuries. In settlements between taxpayers and the collector, Skibinsky replaced handwritten chits with printed stamps.
In the design of the stamps, to make them comprehensible to the illiterate, all characteristics of monetary value long familiar to peasants were combined: stamps depicting coins of less than one ruble were given a round shape, and the rest a rectangular shape. The coloring of the stamps matched the color of the monetary token 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, for recognizing the number of rubles and kopecks, the corresponding number of tally marks was printed on the stamps.
To control the collectors on the one hand and 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 combined on a single sheet intended only for him and secured by separate numbering. Next to the stamps on the same sheet were indicated the taxpayer’s first name, patronymic, and surname, all items of assessment belonging to him according to his household list, and the levies due from him. Thus, a personal tax sheet was produced, on which were grouped all tax demands предъявленные to the taxpayer, all grounds for these demands, documentary signs (stamps) protecting the taxpayer from multiple collection of the same levies, and all personal accounts between the taxpayer and the tax collector. The sheets of all taxpayers under a collector’s jurisdiction were bound into a cord-bound, so-called “control book,” which was kept by the collector.
Tax stamps were used in collecting direct taxes from persons of the taxable estate living in rural areas. Initially, as an experiment, they were introduced in certain rural communities of Podolsk Governorate (Ukraine), which confirmed the convenience of their use.
In practice, tax stamps began to be used in 1893. They were introduced in 44 uyezds of 21 governorates and in the Turkestan Territory. The benefit of introducing tax stamps was recognized at congresses of tax inspectors of the Turkestan Territory and Olonets Governorate, as well as by a number of governorate and uyezd institutions for peasant affairs and by tax inspectors of many uyezds.