100 years ago in The Saratogian
Saturday, Dec. 1, 1917
The war against Germany is forcing the federal government to find new ways to raise money. The Saratogian reports that one method, a tax on legal and financial documents, goes into effect today.
According to the new rule, “Revenue stamps must be affixed to bonds of indemnity or indebtedness, capital stock issues, stock transfers, produce sales on exchanges, drafts, promissory notes, conveyance and deeds, custom house entries, steamship tickets, proxies, assignments of power of attorney, playing cards and parcel post packages.”
The government imposed a similar tax to help pay for the Spanish-American War in 1898. More recently, a peacetime “emergency revenue act” covered the same ground in 1914. The tax rate varies according to the type of transaction involved.
For big transactions like transfers of capital stock, the government levies a tax of two cents for every $100 of the transaction’s face value. The tax jumps up to five cents for every $100 of face value for issues of stock or bonds.
Most people will feel the tax when they send packages by parcel post. For every 25 cents of postage they have to pay, they’ll have to pay an additional cent’s worth of revenue stamps. If they like to play cards, they’ll also have to pay an extra five cents to the government for each new pack for the duration of the war.
New legal firm
Former state senator Edgar T. Brackett, one of Saratoga County’s leading lawyers and bankers, announces the formation of a new law firm with three junior partners today.
Brackett had practiced law for the last 45 years in one office, where he “built up a practice that is one of the largest in the State of New York.” His partners are Hiram C. Todd, Luther A. Wait and Benjamin P. Wheat.
“Each of these men who now becomes a member of the new firm has won distinction in his profession and is counted among the leaders of the bar of the county,” The Saratogian reports.
The new firm of Brackett, Todd, Wheat and Wait is basically a reorganization of Brackett’s old firm. It will occupy Brackett’s old office in City Hall.
What’s happening
Along with Chiquita, the three-foot entertainer, and comedian Jack Fitzgerald, this weekend’s vaudeville bill at the Broadway features the singing and dancing Miller Duo and Vernon’s Equilibrists, along with the Vitagraph feature film, “Who Goes There?”
At the Palace, George Walsh stars in “This is the Life,” a “Picture cyclone of Love, Action and Romance,” while the Lyric presents the latest chapters of “Stingaree” and “The Lost Express.”