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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 2681141, member: 66&quot;]Back in the thirties during the depression the states were hurting for revenue just like everyone else.&nbsp; So they started a new tax idea, a sales tax, yes that&#039;s where sales tax began.&nbsp; Most of the states that implemented sales tax did a 1% tax rate&nbsp; That would be 1 cent for every dollar in sales.&nbsp; But the dollar was worth a lot more back then and a very large percentage of sales were for LESS than a dollar!&nbsp; A ten cent sale meant a tenth of a cent tax was not being collected because there were no coins small enough.&nbsp; So the states began producing their own sales tax tokens denominated in 1 and 5 mills.&nbsp; Merchants could buy quantities of these tokens and then use them to make change for those fractions of a cent tax collections.&nbsp; Make a 30 cent purchase (.3 cents tax due), give them 31 cents&nbsp; and get a five and two one mil tokens as change.&nbsp; The tokens could also be used to pay the tax.&nbsp; In this case 30 cents and three 1 mil tokens, or a 5 mil and get two mils back in change.</p><p><br /></p><p>Unlike coins the tokens were only good in the state they were issued in, and I don&#039;t believe they could be redeemed for real coins if you accumulated a bunch of them.</p><p><br /></p><p>The federal government objected to the tokens and I believe they did try to take several of the states to courts over them.&nbsp; Eventually as tax rates rose states eventually stopped using the tokens.&nbsp; Missouri was the last state still using them and they stopped in 1964.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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