By means of this acknowledgement of payment, the direct taxes indicated
on the acknowledgement of deposit and their additions can be paid in
each post office, but only to the Central Office of Taxes of the city
of Vienna (1. Town-hall).
The tax-payer should indicate exactly and legibly, the sum paid, in
figures and in letters, his name, profession and residence; he should
also write down the tax in the columns designated for it indicating the
kind. This condition not being fulfilled, the payment is not accepted
by the post office.
The tax-payers having a cheque-account in the Post Office Savings Bank
can pay the taxes designated in this acknowledgement by a cheque sent
to the Post Office Savings Bank at Vienna at the same time as this
acknowledgement form, duly filled in. In this case the tax is only
considered as paid on the day on which the cheque is entered in the
books of the Post Office Savings Bank.
Acknowledgements of payment on which alterations or erasures occur are
not accepted.]
The second class of operations of the cheque and clearing service
of the Austrian Postal Savings Bank embraces the different modes of
disposing of the property of the depositors who share in the service.
The cheque is in a general way the instrument to which they recur
under its two fundamental forms of cheques of payment and cheques
of clearing, according as the amount is to be paid in cash or to be
transferred to the account of another participant in the clearing
service. The cheque books remitted to holders serve the double purpose;
it has not been found necessary to print distinct documents, nor even
to give to these two classes of cheques different colours.
Cheque books containing fifty pieces are remitted to participants by
the Central Office at the charge of 1 florin 50 kreutzers; this sum
means 50 kreutzers, expense of paper and printing and 1 florin stamp
duty. They are printed on the premises of the Central Office as are
the attestations of receipts and deposits. About 2,500,000 of them are
now annually reproduced and more than 23,000,000 of cheques have been
issued since the official presses were first set up at Vienna. They
are prepared either in German, or in any other language spoken in the
Empire. Before sending them to the holders of an account the Office
prints on each of these vouchers the number of the account for which
they are to be used, as well as the name and address of the holder.
(Fig. III.)
Expressed in ordinary terms, the cheque states, that the Savings Bank
will pay, on the voucher being forwarded, the sum of which the amount
in florins has been written out in full. It bears the signature of the
person drawing it. To avoid frauds in the statement of the sums to be
paid, the Savings Bank has adopted moreover an arrangement so ingenious
and sure that up to the present time no fraud has been noted.
The cheque bears to the right four series of figures going from 1 to
9. The first set corresponds to thousands, the second to hundreds, the
third to tens, the fourth to units; the four series united together
can express the sum of 9,999 florins, beyond which no cheque can be
drawn, so that if this part of the document is left intact, the amount
of the cheque will be 9,999 florins, provided always that the written
statement agrees with the series of figures. If a lower figure is
stated, then the number of the thousands, hundreds, tens exceeding
the amount desired must be cut off with a pair of scissors. Suppose
for example the cheque is to be for 782 florins; the column of the
thousands is to be cut off, figures 8 and 9 in the columns of the
hundreds, the last figure in that of the tens and the last seven in
the column of units. It is evident that by this ingenious method
of control, it will never be possible to raise the amount of the
cheque; it will be of no use to alter the written statement of the
amount in order to augment it, for it will never be possible to make
a corresponding alteration in the arrangement of the figures to the
right; by this process of cutting off, the cheque can only be reduced
in value but never augmented. And if the agreement between the written
figures and the combination of the figures resulting from this way of
cutting them out is not perfectly exact, the Central Office at Vienna
rejects the voucher as possibly fraudulent, at any rate erroneous.
_Firstly._ (_Cassa-checks._)
The cheque (of payment) can be payable to bearer at the Postal Savings
Bank at Vienna. In this case it is delivered to the person who ought
to receive the amount without the drawer having to transmit it to
him. This party can either bank it himself immediately at the Post
Office Bank at Vienna, or put it in circulation: this circulation
is authorised for fourteen days, but the voucher cannot carry any
endorsement. The cheque will be paid by the Office up to the time that
the credit account of the drawer is sufficient to meet it.
If the cheque has been delivered to a person affiliated to the
postal-service of cheques and clearing, he can have the amount put to
his credit instead of receiving it in cash.
_Secondly._ (_Zahlungsanweisungen des postsparcassen-Amtes._)
The customer of the Postal Savings Bank has the right to cause the
amount of the cheque to be paid into the hands of a particular person
in any one of the Post Offices; in this case he writes on the back of
the cheque the address of the person for whom he intends it.
[Illustration: FIGURE III.