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# Stamp Duties

## Definition

Taxes imposed on legal documents and transfers of property, requiring that
certain papers bear stamps of specified values, which generate revenue from
the transference of property from the dead to the living or from the living
to the living.

## Source Chapter

Book V, Chapter 2

## Context

Smith examines stamp duties as a method of taxing property transfers, noting
their advantages in certainty and low collection costs, while also discussing
their tendency to diminish the capital value of property and discourage
productive investment.

## Economic Domain

General Theory

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