ever, if you find from the retail price commonly and usually charged by retail dealers for the article that the tax stamp affixed does not indicate the true retail price or value, that will be evidence of bad faith on the part of the manufacturer, and the goods will be liable to seizure. * * * The ruling that'rebate checks issued by conductors, being the excess on fare collected on trains, which are redeemable by the company's agent on presentation, are liable to stamp tax, has been revoked, in view of the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral. Taxes which have been paid erroneously, according to this decision, can be refunded upon proper application being made therefor. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Washington, D. C., October 12, 1898. SIR: Referring to your letter of the 16th ultimo, relative to rebate tax issued by conductors, being the excess of fare collected on trains, which are redeemable by the company's agent on presentation, you are informed that the ruling by this office that such checks are liable to the stamp tax has been revoked, in view of the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral, dated the 10th instant. This opinion is appended for the guidance of collectors and other officers of internal revenue. Taxes which have been paid erroneously, according to this decision, can be refunded upon proper application being made therefor. Respectfully, yours, N. B. SCOTT, Commissioner. Mr. JAMES D. GILL, Collector Third District, Boston, Mass. [Opinion of Attorney-General.] DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D. C., October 10, 1898. The SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of yours of the 4th instant, inclosing a copy of a letter of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, dated October 1, 1898, in which you request my opinion as to whether or not what are called “rebate checks," issued by the railroad companies, are required to be stamped under the provisions of the war revenue act as orders for the payment of money. Rebate checks, as they are called, are used by the railroad companies in cases where passengers without tickets purchased at regular stations pay fare to conductors aboard the train. The purpose of these checks, as it appears, is twofold: First, to induce passengers to buy tickets before going aboard passenger trains, and thus avoid the inconvenience of having refunded an extra charge, and, in the second place, to furnish evidence to the railroad companies that cash fares have been paid to conductors, so as to be a check upon their reports. The plan is to require the passenger to pay more than the price of a ticket purchased at the station, and the conductor to whom it is paid gives to the passenger what is called a rebate check, which is redeemable at a ticket office of the railroad company for the amount paid by the passenger over and above the regular fare. These checks, I advise you, are not orders for the payment of money as comtemplated by the war-revenue act. They are not drawn by one person or company upon another. They are more in the nature of transactions of a railroad company with itself, in which the passengers are used as instruments to carry them out. The company gives to the passenger a check by which the same company agrees to refund an amount of money which the passenger has paid, provided the check is presented at a certain place within a specified time. Such checks, given under these circumstances, do not, in my opinion, require a stamp under the provision of the act referred to. Respectfully, yours. Approved: JAS. E. BOYD, Assistant Attorney-General. JOHN K. RICHARDS, Acting Attorney-General. RECEIPTS. (See also BILLS OF. LADING; WAREHOUSE RECEIPTS; Baggage-Decision 20169, p. 44. Bills of lading, etc. -Decisions 19829, p. 31; 19965, p. 34; 19996, p. 41; 20194, p. 46. Depositors'-Decision 20192, p. 104. In lieu of bank checks-Decisions 20192, p. 104; 20231, p. 106. Ordinary-Decision 19700, p. 240. Setting forth terms of a lease-Decision 19684, p. 185. Shipping-Decision 19571, p. 18. WarehouseDecisions 19615, p. 123; 20118, p. 102.) (19604.) Stamp tax-Wharf receipt. Wharf receipt given to shipper in exchange for which bill of lading, bearing stamp, is issued does not require stamp. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Washington, D. C., June 29, 1898. SIR: In reply to your letter of the 28th instant, inclosing a letter addressed to you on the 27th instant by Mr. E. Hawley, assistant` `gen eral traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Company, Morgan Steamship Line, you will please inform him, in reply to the first inquiry which he makes, that a wharf receipt given to a shipper by their receiving department in exchange for which a bill of lading is issued at their office, bearing a 1-cent stamp, does not, as this office is at present advised, require also a 1-cent stamp. The stamp on the bill of lading for such shipment appears to meet all the requirements of the law in that regard. To his second inquiry, you will please inform him that the 10-cent stamp affixed to an export bill of lading, and duly canceled, is all that is required therefor by the seventh subdivision of Schedule A of the act of June 13, 1898, and that duplicates and triplicates thereof, made and delivered to persons in interest, are not required by the law to be stamped. OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Washington, D. O., July 7, 1898. SIR: In reply to your letter of inquiry dated the 25th ultimo you are hereby advised that an instrument such as that which you submit, reading "Received of the Manistee County Savings Bank, one hundred dollars," not being in form either a "bank check, draft, or certificate of deposit not drawing interest, or order for the payment of any sum of money," is not subject to the stamp tax of 2 cents imposed by the third paragraph of Schedule A of the act of June 13, 1898. SNUFF. (See TOBACCO, CIGARS, AND SNUFF.) STAMPS. (See INTERNAL-REVENUE STAMPS.) STEAMSHIP PASSAGE TICKETS. (19964.) Stamp tax-Passenger tickets. Passenger tickets to Porto Rico subject to taxation. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Washington, D. C., August 24, 1898. SIR: I am in receipt of your letter of August 18, 1898, in which you inclose a letter from A. Emilius Outerbridge & Co., 39 Broadway, New York, bearing date of August 18, 1898. A. E. Outerbridge * & Co. state their steamboat sails on the 24th instant for the West Indies, calling at Ponce, Porto Rico, to land passengers only, and as Ponce is now under the American flag, they ask will it be necessary to attach war-tax stamps to tickets for passengers going to Ponce? You will inform them that the military occupation of this island by the United States Army and the signing of the protocol entered into by this Government and the Government of Spain through the French ambassador have not created such a condition as to render this island a United States possession to the extent of exempting these tickets from taxation. * Respectfully, yours, N. B. SCOTT, Commissioner. Mr. CHAS. H. TREAT, Collector Second District, New York, N. Y. (20004.) Stamp tax-Passage tickets. Revocation of ruling that tickets issued in Canada for passage on a vessel sailing from a United States port are not subject to stamp tax. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL RENENUE, Washington, D. C., September 3, 1898. To revenue agents at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and San Francisco: Inclosed herein please find copy of a letter to Mr. R. M. Melville, general manager of the Toronto Steamship Agency, under date of the 1st instant, in regard to the tax on passage tickets by any vessel from a port in the United States to a foreign port, and in correction of a ruling in regard to the same as published under date of July 13, 1898. You will notice by this letter that the ruling mentioned in regard to its application to passage tickets issued in Canada has been abandoned and abrogated by this office. Of course this decision as to the tax on passage tickets applies to all which may be presented for passage on any vessel from a port in the United States to a foreign port without regard to the place where they may have been purchased, with exception of the exemption contained in the last paragraph of Schedule A, act of June 13, 1898, relating to ports in British North America. It is possible that tickets may be presented in your city at the vessels sailing by various lines to foreign ports upon which the tax has not been paid. Mr. Melville has sent several communications to this office upon the subject, and it is reasonable to suppose that many tickets have been issued up to the present time upon which no tax has been paid. In this class the touring tickets sold abroad, as well as tickets issued in any country on this continent for use in passing through this country and departing therefrom by vessels from one of our ports, may be included. You will therefore take steps to notify the different companies whose vessels leave for foreign ports of the fact that tax must be paid upon such tickets, and that if tickets are presented upon which the tax has not been paid by the proper stamps being affixed thereto they must require the parties presenting them to stamp them properly before they are received for passage. It is provided by section 6 of the act of June 13, 1898, that the tax imposed upon such a thing as a passage ticket shall be paid by any person or persons who shall make, sign, or issue the same, or for whose use or benefit the same shall be made, signed, or issued; and section 7 declares a penalty of not more than $100 if any person or persons shall make, sign, or issue, or cause to be made, signed, or issued, such a paper without the same being duly stamped. It is held that any person who accepts a passage ticket which is not properly stamped has caused the same to be issued to himself, and is therefore liable for the tax imposed thereon. N. B. SCOTT, Commissioner. [Inclosure.] TREASURY DEpartment, OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Washington, D. C., September 1, 1898. SIR: Your letter of August 6, 1898, has been received. You acknowledge the receipt of a letter from this office dated August 3, and also of an accompanying Circular No. 503, issued by this office under date of July 13, 1898. In reply to your inquiry under date of July 28, 1898, you were informed on August 3 that the rate of taxation imposed by the act of June 13, 1898, is due upon all passage tickets by vessels from ports in the United States to a foreign port, and must be paid by stamps on the tickets without regard to the place where the tickets may |