10 things you didn't know about stamp duty

Stamp duty was first levied in 1694, by King William of Orange and Queen Mary to pay for their war against France.

It was charged by the tax commissioners on the stamp put on documents, including insurance policies, wills and legal documents.

It originally raised £50,000 a year.

Stamp duty was one of the flashpoints for the American Revolution. Stamped papers were burned by rioters.

William Pitt said in his 1797 Budget that stamp duty was a good tax because it did not hurt 'the lower orders in society'.
He then doubled the rate of duty.

Stamp duty on house purchases was first levied in 1808, during yet another war with France.

William Wordsworth, the poet, was a stamp duty collector in the 1820s.

British stamp duty on share deals has been among the highest in the developed world: the US rate, for example, is just 0.016 per cent.

But stamp duty on houses has been low by international standards: in France, the rate is typically 7 per cent.

Documents still today have to be physically stamped in tax offices or at the main stamp duty office in Worthing, Sussex.

Tax experts are puzzling over how to put stamps on e-commerce.