I'm sure one of the trained legal minds on the board will explain it better than I can.
First, we have to suspend disbelief and remember that there was a time in this country when we expected to repay national debt! Imagine that...
The war tax was a tax on all amusements...theatre, sports, etc...to pay off the debts created through sales of Liberty bonds and war stamps related to the costs of waging the First World War. It was applied to baseball against tremendous resistance...principally because it eliminated the long-traditional "two-bit" bleacher seat. The tax added a nickel to the cheapest seats (25 cents) and the lords of baseball proclaimed there would be mass confusion trying to make change for thousands of fans. The more cynical observers predicted that bleacher seats would soon rise to 50 cents.
The words "War Tax" were replaced by "Tax Paid" on later Yankee tickets. I don't know when the official War Tax was ended, but in essence they just changed the addressee on the payments.
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