The Chinese Stamp Duty Payment Warrants-- A Special Group of Duty Stamps
By Yaohua Liang (China)

There were a special group of duty stamp sheets named Stamp Duty Payment Warrant (Chinese name:印花税繳款書, see Figure 1) in the history of China, rare in the world, which each bore an officially authorized
pre-printed stamp but non-denominated (see Figure 2).

Figure 1: an unused“Chinese Stamp Duty
Payment Warrant” born
an officially authorized
pre-printed stamp,provided by Mr. LiHuixiang

On account of their strange styles,
not a few FIP jurors feel and think that
Figure 2: the stamp
they should not be included in items &with a National Mark
scopes of revenue exhibits. Although“Duty Stamp of ROC”
Chinese revenue philatelists firmly(Chinese:中華民國印花believed that they were – as consensus
税票) but without
in their own circle, but they also neverdenomination on
made systematic demonstrations in theirarticles and gave public explanations inword or international exhibitions. So,
basing on following arguments anddemonstrations, I want to raise my opinion – the Chinese Stamp Duty Payment Warrants are a group ofrevenue stamped papers (similar to postal stationeries) or even duty stamps as a whole actually.
Followings are the relevant histories & cases related to them -The Ministry of Finance of ROC issued a revised “Rules for the Implementation of Stamp Duty Act”
(Chinese name:印花税法施行細則, see Figure 3, published in “The Selection of Industry & Commerce Tax
Revenue Historical Materials <the 4th series> -- Direct Tax & Stamp Duty <last volume>”, published byNanjing University Press) on 5 May 1943. In the Article 6 of these Rules, it said: “…As a special case, insteadof affixing adhesive duty stamps by other methods after being approved by the Ministry of Finance, its validity
was equivalent…” (The original document was collected by the Second Historical Archives of China)

1Figure 3: “Rules for theImplementation of Stamp
Duty Act”, 5 May 1943,
provided by Mr. Duan Hui

In accordance with theseRules, Direct Tax Section of theMinistry of Finance issued andsent “The Instruction for Making
and Filling in Triple Stamp Duty
Payment Warrants” (ChungkingInstruction No 0856, Chinese
name: 直接税處關于制定印花税三聯繳款書及填用須知的訓令)
to the Direct Tax Branch of Chungking on 11 Sep 1943. At that time, Chungking was the wartime capital, sodocuments of the Ministry of Finance were sent firstly to Chungking and then to all the provinces (sent to theprovinces later on 24 Sep in accordance with records). It said in the Instruction such as “Steep rises in needsof large amount of duty stamps since Stamp Duty Act was revised and issued. Although we sent large amountof adhesive duty stamps to all place, but supplies were not enough still. In order to adaptive needs andfacilitate preservations, in accordance with the Article 6 of „Rules for the Implementation of Stamp Duty Act‟,
we made a kind of sheets named „Stamp Duty Payment Warrant‟. Each of them was divided into triple - Stubcopy, Receipt copy and Notice copy. We made a Usage Method and issued it to the Branches obeying andusing. After finishing tax payment by taxpayers through the Payment Warrants, instead of duty stamps, theirReceipt copies could be affixed on documents and be used legally…” (The document content was publishedin the journal “Revenue Stamps Collecting” total 8th issue, edited & published by the Revenue Stamps
Research Association of China, see figure 4)
In the accessory of above Instruction -- “The Instruction for
Filling in the Stamp Duty Payment Warrant” (see figure 5, theoriginal document was collected by Chungking City Archives), itspecified:“1. In accordance with the Article 6 of „Rules for theImplementation of Stamp Duty Act‟, the Stamp Duty Payment
Warrants were made. The Receipt copy will be able to instead ofduty stamps, and no need to stamp again.
2. If payable tax sum of a document exceed 500 Yuan, it may
be filled in a Payment Warrant.

Figure 4: “The Instruction for Fillingin the Stamp Duty PaymentWarrant”, 11 Sep 1943

3. After being filled & checked by a tax authority, each columnof the Payment Warrant should be filled & sealed, and gave to its
taxpayer.
①For keeping and accounting, after tax payment, Stubcopies should be sent from the filling authority to the gathering
authority each ten days.
②After tax payment, Receipt copies should be affixed on2documents.
③Notice copies and taxation must be sent to the gathering authority and checked by it.
4. After receiving tax collections, gathering authorities should seal on Receipt copies and give them totaxpayers for their affixing.
5. Payment Warrants are calculated in terms of Yuan and when less than one Yuan, they should beaffixed duty stamps with Jiao denomination to complement.
6. If no time to buy temporarily, taxpayers should buy whole amount Payment Warrants separated into
sheets for their expected needs in advance. When using, taxpayers should affix duty stamps to complementin accordance with above measures.”

Figure 5: “TheInstruction for Fillingin the Stamp Duty
Payment Warrant”,
published in thejournal “RevenueStamps Collecting”
total 8th issue 1998

Non-adhesive duty stamps without nominal value, were printed on the Stamp Duty Payment Warrants.
Successively, their drawings included to “the Six-Harmony Pagoda”, “Combined Transport by Land, Sea andSky” and “Farmers and Workers”. Therein, “Combined Transport by Land, Sea and Sky” drawing was theoriginal design of “Combined Transport by Land, Sea and Sky” adhesive duty stamps which were used during
May 1946 to 1948 (see figure 6), and all of their printers, denominations, types & formats, reprints, andnational & local editions, were maximum and complex through the fiscal stamp history of China.
Figure 7 was a document which being
used and affixed together with some Receipt
copies of Duty Payment Warrants with
“Combined Transport by Land, Sea and Sky”
drawing non-adhesive duty stamps on, andother adhesive duty stamps.

Figure 6: 500 Yuan & 10000 Yuan of “Combined Transportby Land, Sea and Sky” drawing adhesive duty stamps

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Figure 8 was a document which being
used and affixed with a Receipt copy of theDuty
PaymentWarrant
with“theSix-Harmony Pagoda” drawing pre-printed
duty stamp on (used on 23 Feb 1949). In thecolumn of “Tax Amount in Gold Yuan”(Chinese name: 金 圓 金 額 ), a manuscript
was 8.40 Gold Yuan in tax (see figure 9).

Figure 7: an example used andaffixed on a document together
with some Receipt copies andother adhesive duty stamps,
provided by Mr. Duan Hui

Figure 8: an example usedand affixed on a documentwith a Receipt copy of the Duty
Payment Warrant with “theSix-Harmony Pagoda” drawing
non-adhesive duty stamps on(used on 23 Feb 1949), by Mr.
Duan Hui

Figure 9: tax amount byhandwritten in its column

Figure 10 was a dilapidated but very rare Receipt copy of the local edition Duty Payment Warrant with
“Combined Transport by Land, Sea and Sky” drawing pre-printed duty stamp (used on 18 April 1949). It wasissued by State Taxation Bureau of Wuchang of the Ministry of Finance (Chinese name: 財政部武昌國税稽徵
局, on the left of the stamp, see figure 11), and known less than five examples. More rarely, a postal
date-mark of Hanyang Post Office was struck instead of a tax seal, besides a red square seal of the State
Taxation Bureau of Wuchang.

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Figure 11: mark of the local edition,
pre-printed on the left of the stamp

Figure 10: a very rare Receipt copy of the local edition Duty
Payment Warrant, with a postal date-mark instead of a tax seal,
provided by Mr. Li Huixiang

After the founding of PRC, Ministry of Finance of the Central People‟s Government issued “Rules for theImplementation of Temporary Regulation of Stamp Duty” on 4 Jan 1951. In accordance with these Rules, inaddition to continue to use directly Payment Warrants of ROC, local tax bureaus of the large Regions issued
and used some Stamp Duty Payment Warrants one after another with non-adhesive duty stamps such as“Factory”, “Steel-making”, “Celebrities-collecting Gate” and “Flag & Earth” drawing until 1958. They all
followed usage methods of PRC by and large.
Altogether, a large number of Chinese Stamp Duty Payment Warrants with non-adhesive duty stamps
and without face value rates upon, were used and affixed during 1943 to 1958. But from those Rules andusage methods, we can see that they were not printed nominal value rates designedly in order to adaptive
needs of various high amounts of stamp duties. Manuscript amounts were their denominations when they
were used and affixed such as Figure 8. After being affixed, Payment Warrants must be cancelled byacross-page seal or pencil in accordance with those Rules. It meant and proved that non-adhesive
stamps and manuscript amounts were an inseparable entirety which was same as postal stationery.
And they formed a complete non-adhesive duty stamp sheet.
Finally, each of Stamp Duty Payment Warrants had an explicit face value rate -- manuscript amount of
the stamp duty namely. So, each Payment Warrant should be regard as one set of non-adhesive duty
stamps with the most denominations -- no one can say how many one set is!

Finalized on 30 Nov 20175