back to article Now here's a novel idea: Digitising Victorian-era stamp duty machines

Government tech often gets slagged off for being old and clunky. But spare a thought for the folks issuing stamp duty, who have to handle machines from the 1870s which "close down" at 2pm every day to be cleaned. In a report this week [PDF], the Office of Tax Simplification urged the government to digitise paper stamp duty on …

  1. Bloodbeastterror

    "old and clunky"

    Not my experience at all, to my astonishment.

    I called the tax office earlier this week to ask about a tax refund, expecting "Yes, we'll send you a 30-page form in the post and eventually we'll get round to it".

    Instead I got a very on-the-ball young man who said "Ah yes, I can see that we owe you some cash. What are your bank account numbers? It'll be in your account in a couple of weeks."

    1. fnusnu

      Re: "old and clunky"

      The HMRC website is great - you can see all your missing (or complete) NI contribution years. I was missing a couple, called to enquire how I could pay and was told 'only by cheque'...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "old and clunky"

      "What are your bank account numbers? It'll be in your account in a couple of weeks."

      A phone call every year establishes the amount HMRC owes me when savings interest and GiftAid are offset. In previous years a cheque arrived in the post within a few days.

      Last year I was told I would have to register online, using the verification scheme, in order to request the refund to my bank account. Only if that was not done would a cheque be sent to me after a period of something like 2 to 3 months.

      Looked at the verification process - decided it was all too much pain - and instead waited for the cheque to duly arrive after the aforementioned long delay.

      1. a_a

        Re: "old and clunky"

        I'll stick with the cheque as well, if they had my bank details they'd have paid me £1000 I wasn't entitled to due to a PAYE reporting error on the part of my employer.

    3. Bloodbeastterror

      Re: "old and clunky"

      "4 thumbs up & 2 thumbs down"

      2 thumbs down? What in the name of god did I say that caused somebody to downvote? Do people just hate the revenue so much that any mention causes their mouse finger to twitch? Bizarre...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "old and clunky"

        Perhaps because you weren't talking about the kind of stamp duty that's the subject of this article?

  2. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Progress

    Steady on there, no need to rush into this.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Can they not put these machines in the. cloud or something?

    1. DJV Silver badge

      They tried this a couple of times but found they couldn't find ladders long enough to get right up to the cloud, and the machines had a habit of falling down if they merely glued them to the ceiling.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "They tried this a couple of times but found they couldn't find ladders long enough to get right up to the cloud,"

        Pegasus would have solved that problem for them.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    +1 for HMRC

    recent employment changes have resulted in a (unexpected !) tax rebate.

    Got the info from HMRC last Friday, and within a few minutes had created an account and triggered a payment into my bank account ...

    - Browser based (well worked in Chrome, so assume Firefox and IE would work too)

    - requires your passport/NI details (and links them)

    - uses 2FA to validate the phone number given (for future use)

    A *lot* of online retailers could learn a thing or two.

    1. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: +1 for HMRC

      >- Browser based (well worked in Chrome, so assume Firefox and IE would work too) <

      Chrome is currently the most popular browser in use, and is the default browser for many jobs. Most sites work with any modern browser, but of those that don't, Chrome is the only browser certain to work.

    2. cantankerous swineherd

      Re: +1 for HMRC

      so you give them your phone number, spend £70 on biometric enrolment and they tie this lot to your national identity number. I'll keep the tinfoil hat thanks. ymmv.

  5. The Mole

    Simpler solution

    Compared to a costly government IT project (is there any other kind) surely all they need to do is employ the machine cleaners on a night shift instead? That would double the number of hours worked! I imagine a 3d printer could print out a few additional machines without too much work as well!

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Simpler solution

      surely all they need to do is employ the machine cleaners on a night shift instead?

      Steady - that's a material change to terms and conditions of employment and the unions will be on it like a rat up your trouserleg..

    2. Gavin King

      Re: Simpler solution

      "I imagine a 3d printer..."

      I hope I'm not the only one who read that as "thruppence printer", considering the age of the machines.

  6. tony72
    Thumb Up

    On the plus side ...

    On the plus side, I'm betting these stamp machines will never be taken down by ransomware or hackers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: On the plus side ...

      I doubt such was the worry when the bobbins were thrown out!

  7. wolfetone Silver badge

    You know, we could just get rid of stamp duty altogether?

    1. TRT Silver badge

      But not, necessarily, the stamp.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's not a f***ing novel idea

    A novel idea would be to abolish stamp duty, and make a tiny start to simplify the UK's shitty, unfair, counter-productive, over-complex, loophole ridden tax code. It's currently around 17,000 pages long, and widely reckoned to be the most complex in the world. Hong Kong get by with (allegedly) under 300 pages.

    In practice stamp duty is now largely a consumer tax because most large institutions can easily avoid it. As a tax on share purchases it discourages investment in equities, surely something they'd prefer people to do? And as a property tax it acts as a major discouragement to moving house, so contributing to the UK problem of low mobility labour, pushing up transport demand and house prices.

    Obviously they'd need to find another £11bn of tax income. Perhaps the Tossers of Westminster (ToW, tm) could make a start with the tax-dodging US corporations who do billions of pounds worth of business in this country, yet report no profits on those sales. Can't see that happening myself, sadly.

    1. Hollerithevo

      Re: That's not a f***ing novel idea

      It's called 'Tax Simplification' and it is already in hand.

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: That's not a f***ing novel idea

        It's called 'Tax Simplification' and it is already in hand.

        And is currently in the status of "sorry, we lost the paperwork down the back of the sofa". With some work, the Civil Service is hoping to move it forward to the status of "the paperwork has been lost in the post" but no-one involved is hopeful that the long-expected progress can be maintained. Or even implemented.

        After all, it's a very Bold Step.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: That's not a f***ing novel idea

          After all, it's a very Bold Step.

          You're correct. Tax Simplification will go the same way as the "Bonfire of the Quangos", and the "Better Regulation Task Force" both of which achieved zilch at a practical level, and even then were overtaken by the endless desire of MPs to pass more and more laws that created more quangos, and added yet more regulation.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That's not a f***ing novel idea

      As a tax on share purchases it discourages investment short-term speculation in equities

      FTFY. Now it just needs to be applied to derivatives etc - an idea roundly rejected by the sector of course.

    3. andygrace

      Re: That's not a f***ing novel idea

      Great idea but nothing like £11B. Remove the duty, then remove the people employed to collect, enforce, administer and legally interpret the rules and deal with disputes. Then fire the project managers, remove the insurance companies, bankers, agents, communications executives and sundry other parasites living off the system, Then sell off all the infrastructure, real estate, even sell those antique stamping machines to the highest bidders for an immediate one-off gain, writing down debt. So people lose their jobs. Life sucks. Deal with it.

      While you're at it, you may as well automate all taxation completely. Book 5% of all revenue at the gate - that's less than the compliance costs of the 'Double Irish' for American corporations. Give everyone a small, permanent unemployment benefit, just enough to eat. No need to apply because probably you'll lose your job. And write off all loans in the old currency and eliminate the entire banking system. No need, we're all digital baby! Bring back a balanced government budget and a new currency that's backed by energy and metals. Goodbye 80% of the cost of government and it's a huge incentive for people and small businesses to do something productive and grow the economy.

      Sure, massive deflation of some things, hyper-inflation of others along with a mega-depression but we'll get over it ... eventually ... then it's blue sky. Just think of how many lawyers we'd be able to get rid of! Oops - sorry wife.

  9. maffski

    Wrong answer to a problem that doesn't exist?

    This is specifically about stamp duty on transactions involving paper share certificates.

    Of which there are very few, from the report it was 103,000 for the 2016 tax year.

    So that's just under 400 a day (5 day week).

    The majority of shares are traded digitally and the process is automated.

    Most of the paper shares have been held for decades and are often processed as a part death estate, so it's a problem that is going away as shares are traded into the digital market.

    So the recommendation for the Office of Tax Simplification should be - no new paper certificates to be issued and carry on until everyone with paper certs is dead. This doesn't require spending a shed load of money on a new system that will be redundant in 10-20 years.

    1. monty75
      Joke

      Re: Wrong answer to a problem that doesn't exist?

      "This doesn't require spending a shed load of money on a new system that will be redundant in 10-20 years."

      That's probably what they said in the 1890s too

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Many years ago it was common to see quite low denomination postage stamps affixed to a document. Usually a signature over them acted as franking and a seal. Apparently that was a way of collecting some government duty on various types of transaction. Was that another form of official "stamp duty"?

    1. 8Ace

      Reminds me ..

      Just like Postal Orders, for a 27p Postal order you got a 25p one with a 2p stamp on it.

      The days of ordering 74 series TTL logic from Watford and Technomatic !

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Reminds me ..

        "74 series TTL logic"

        I've just been watching the series on restoring a Xerox Alto at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YupOC_6bfMI&list=PL-_93BVApb58I3ZV67LW3S_JEMFnDrQDj

        It turns out that the Alto was largely built from 74 TTL and, I thought, surprisingly few of them.

    2. Not also known as SC

      I have a 'wedding book' from when I registered my marriage in Belgium. It has physical stamps stuck in it to cover the necessary taxes. So I think that those stamps you were referring to are an official stamp duty.

      1. BongoJoe

        I do remember living in Belgium, until about the turn of the century, that even posters on the street, advert cards in newsagents all had little stamps on them. It seems that there was one person's job in the post office to just handle these stamps.

        I think that these transactions just about covered their salary.

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          I think that these transactions just about covered their salary.

          That's actually the case in France. After WW1 there were huge numbers of war widows with no income, and no way to support their children. At that time it wasn't "done" for women to work, and the government didn't want to just hand out charity. Instead it took various government documents that had to be paid for and introduced the idea of "timbres fiscal" (financial stamps) to pay the fees. The rights to sell those stamps were given to widows, who were also given the monopoly on tobacco sales, and they got a percentage of the sale price as a way to give them a guaranteed income. Even today the right to run a "tabac" shop is controlled, and passed down through generations.

    3. martinusher Silver badge

      Vintage stamp duty

      >Was that another form of official "stamp duty"?

      Yes, it was a way of collecting revenue because back then the post office was part of the government.

      Stamp duty was collected on all sorts of documents. Cheques were pre-printed with them. This all went out the window years ago, in fact I was surprised to find that stamp duty still exists (I now live 'not in the UK').

      One other note about tax and stuff. When VAT was first introduced it replaced purchase tax but because purchase tax was levied selectively on "luxury" items and VAT was on pretty much everything it raked in scads of money, far more than was needed. That was in the days of 7&...now its 20% (?)...and taxes are still being levied on everything and anything. Despite this the government's always chronically short of money (that's not new, either -- you can go back to Victorian times, maybe earlier, and you'll hear it singing the same song). Anyone have any idea where the money's going to?

      1. Dominion

        Re: Vintage stamp duty

        I often wonder where tax is being spent. VAT went up from 15% to 17.5% due to to the utter incompetence over implementing poll tax. Even though poll tax has long since been scrapped the VAT rate has remained higher, now 20%.

      2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        Re: Vintage stamp duty

        "Anyone have any idea where the money's going to?"

        Tax cuts for rich people.

        Okay, we're living longer, don't want pensioners to live in penury, and don't want them queued on trolleys round the hospital car park. But that aside, the cut in inheritance tax has got to be paid for by somebody.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Vintage stamp duty

          the cut in inheritance tax has got to be paid for by somebody.

          Inheritance tax, like a wealth tax, is an iniquitous form of double taxation. Why should the government be entitled to help itself to money just because the owners have died? They've almost certainly already paid taxes on that income while they were earning it, and more tax will be paid when it is eventually spent.

    4. Dave Bell

      Not sure if it was stamp duty

      Yes, it happened. I'm not sure it was quite the same thing as Stamp Duty, as it was a fixed fee for the document, rather than a percentage of the transaction. So the tax-stamp was already on printed cheques and the money collected as part of the per-cheque bank charges. But you could still write out the whole cheque on any piece of paper and add the stamp.

      That was already unusual in my father's day. He was given a cheque like that when he sold a farm trailer, written on a sugar bag that had been re-used to wrap sandwiches. He was a bit worried, he told me, but the people at the local cattle market knew of the guy. and the cheque went through clearing.

      I am not sure what the current system would do. A cheque could also be "endorsed": it was an instruction for the bank to pay you. and you could add an instruction to pay somebody else. My father said that some of his cheques went through a chain of several endorsements at the cattle markets such as Melton Mowbray, Uttoxeter, and Bakewell. It meant that people trusted him.

      Maybe that's the sort of business dealing that inspired the idea of blockchain currencies. I doubt anyone involved in that has the trust that my father had. It's a hard act to follow.

  11. Stevie

    Bah!

    Don't replace, augment the old with new tech for a truly twenty first century steampunk ambience!

    T'would be a great draw for new hires too, I reckon, by gad.

  12. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Happy

    Sounds like a job for ...

    Moist von Lipwig,

    who else?

  13. Peter Galbavy

    Checking the date...

    Sorry, is it April 1st already?

  14. Paul Herber Silver badge

    Many stamps used to contain the text 'Postage and Revenue'

    1. Davidwall

      I have a ' 1d Penny Red ' physical stamp overwritten with the Registrars signature on my Birth Certificate from 1948.

    2. Kingstonian

      Stamp Duty on receipts and Cheques

      All receipts of £2-0s-0d or more needed a 2d postage stamp (which were brown in colour at least in the 1950s) as stamp duty to make them legal hence the revenue part of the wording on the stamp. National Insurance contributions used to be paid by physical stamps (not postage stamps though) which the employer bought and stuck on the employees National Insurance cards - which is why some older people talk of "I get a pension etc. because I paid my stamp" and also leaving or being dismissed from a job was getting or being given your cards as this then needed to be given to the Dole Office aka "Labour Exchange" or your next employer (now the P45 form). Also talking of cheques the bank would charge you 5/- (five shillings or 25p in new money) for a book of 30 cheques for the stamp duty (30x 2d = 5/-) . The 2d cheque duty was abolished on 1 February 1971 just before decimalisation on the 15th.

      ( https://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk/information-hub/history-cheque/taxes-and-stamp-duty ) The 2d on receipts was often ignored but I think not officially abolished until the same date.

  15. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    a process that began in 1694,

    In the US, anything done more than twice is a "tradition" because to most people, there's very little history. That stamp process is older than the USA.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Further comment sought but

    ...it was after 4pm and everyone knows that's quill sharpening time!

  17. Winkypop Silver badge

    Old machines maybe

    But reliable.

    If not antiquated.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1971 the Labour Exchange sent me for interview at the Birmingham Stamp Office. The guy showed me the task: insert the document spin the spinny-thing on top to apply pressure and bond the stamp un-spin the spinny-thing remove document, repeat for the next 40 years. He then pointed out that I was well educated (despite not knowing the correct term for the spinny-thing), I'd be bored rigid and that this wasn't the right job for me. I ended up condemned to 40 years in IT.

    I gather that what hasn't changed is that the staff at whatever the Labour Exchange is called these days are rubbish at matching people to jobs, a former lady employee of mine, an office administrator made redundant aged 59, signed on and they offered her re-training at a spot-welder.

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