Hey yall. I came across a few sales tax tokens. I haven't looked into them too much, but I know they aren't worth much. I do think they are pretty cool, though. Here's some pics. I wasn't sure if I should resurrect such an old thread, but this goes pretty in depth about these tokens. http://www.cointalk.com/t16299/
From what I understand, they functioned as fractions of a cent to make change on sales tax of small purchases . If the sales tax amounted to only lets say 1/2 a cent on your purchase they would give you half a cents worth of these for change, and on your next purchase you could use these to pay the sales tax.
Interesting. But these seem to be denominated in full cents? Can you recommend a book or article on these?
A good start. I've ordered United States Sales Tax Tokens and Stamps by M. K. Malehorn from the library.
I've got a roll of those things from Missouri from when I was a kid. Way, way back when you purchased something there was a sales tax of some percent. Can't remember exactly what it was in Missouri but if you purchased something for $1 and the sales tax was $0.001, the only way to pay for that was with those Mills. They were called sales tax mills when I was there. As a kid some relatives gave me a lot of them since I thought I was really rich with a handfull of those. In Missouri there was several types of those. Don't know why but the $0.001 were usually green or grey. The $0.005 ones were either green plastic or grey metal with a hole in the center. With these you could pay for almost anything in values of any denomination from a tenth of a cent to nine tenths of a cent. As I got older I gave a lot of them away as a joke but luckily I did manage to save a plastic roll of them. May sound dumb in the Chicago area where there is the highest sales tax in the country now at, not sure, think it's 10.25%. Imagine you buy something for $10 and end up paying $11.25. No use for those Mills there.
When I first saw these in my parents coin collection, I was certainly surprised. It would have never occurred to me that there would have ever been a need for these things.
They started during the Depression. With businesses closing down and people out of work the states were desperate for revenue. So several states instituted a sales tax. The rate was almost universally 1%, I think the highest rate was 2%, and it was collect on the full amount of the sale. They had to since at the time most purchases made were for well less than a dollar. That caused a problem though since that meant that the tax would often be less than a cent. You couldn't just let that less than a cent tax slide though because that would be the bulk of the revenue, and you couldn't just round it up to a cent because that would represent a much higher tax rate. So the states created their own "tokens" denominated in mills or tenths of a cent and 5 mill pieces. The merchants would purchase a supply of tokens from the state (This gave the states their tax money up front) and then tey would use them to make change for the sales tax paid by the customer. For example on a twenty cent purchase a tax of two mills was owed. The customer paid an extra cent and received 8 mills in change. Now that the customer had some mills they could use them to pay the tax on other purchases at other stores. If the sales amount was not an even ten cent amount the tax would be rounded up or down to the nearest mill. This would not cause too great a hardship because you were only talking at the most half a mill or 5/100th of a cent. The Federal government never liked the idea of the tax tokens and tried to stamp them out but they hung on for quite some time. The last state to stop using them was Missouri in 1961. Even in states that didn't issue tax tokens, local municipalities often did. There is a national club for collectors of sales tax tokens and their website can be found here. http://www.taxtoken.org/
Those are interesting ones shown here. I really didn't know other states had ones with holes in the center like my Missouri ones. Then too it is not just the $0.005 ones either with the holes. And too the holes are not round, but of different designs. Amazing that so much thought went into a thing of so little value. Sure is odd that no one started to mass produce the plastic ones.
These a Mills not cents. It would take a 1000 to make a dollar instead of 100 cents. The tokens with a 1 is 1/10 a cent, 5 = 1/2 cent
I have one of the Missouri tokens that was the first posted in the opening post....I inherited it. Which is weird because as far as I know no one in my family was in Missouri when they were issued. One of those mysteries of the universe I guess. LOL. I collect video arcade tokens, but not gambling tokens. I save one from each arcade I visit. One or more...
Bill I am sorry I missed that! I have one I can not find anything about it. after my my mother mother pass I was about 8 and the toke had always been in her coin stuff.it just a plain brass 5 C about the size quarter.I will find it and post it soon