Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Ad Choices. Report a digital subscription issue If you are being blocked from reading Subscriber Exclusive content, first confirm you are logged in using the account with which you subscribed.
Don't settle for anything less than responsible journalism. Subscribe today. You can immediately take advantage of features such as printing shipping labels on plain paper or printing postage directly on envelopes! Try us out for 4 weeks! How Do Forever Stamps Work? About Stamps. Digital Scale with Sign-up. Your Stamps. The USPS permits the use of several postage indicia. These include meter indicia, mailing permit imprints, and customized postage.
Each of these forms of postage is described below. A postage meter or mailing machine is a device that is used to print postage indicia directly onto mailpieces or pieces of adhesive tape that are to be affixed to mailpieces. The mailer then prepays for postage, and this prepayment is registered in his postage meter. When he wishes to mail an item, the mailer places it in the meter, which weighs it and prints the required postage.
Indicia made by postage meters may be customized to include advertisements or messages. A customer may do this by designing and purchasing an advertising plate from the firm that provided his postage meter. Mailing imprints are rectangular indicia printed at the top right of envelopes. Thus, for example, if a not-for-profit firm wanted to send letters to its 5, donors, it first would fill out an application with the USPS to receive a mailing permit and imprint.
The firm then would hire another firm to print 5, envelopes with the imprint on them. The not-for-profit company would stuff these envelopes with letters and deliver them to the post office from which it received its mailing permit. The USPS would receive the mail, and the firm would pay for the postage required on the spot.
The act amended 18 U. To cite just two of the restrictions: customized postage indicia may not carry partisan or political contents or messages; and they may not depict profanity, nudity, or be sexually explicit. Despite their appearance, customized postage indicia are not stamps.
Rather, they are adhesive stickers that indicate postage paid. Customized postage indicia are sold at a premium by authorized private companies. The extra cost of customized postage goes to the licensees, though, in some instances, a portion of the extra cost may be used to support a particular charity or cause. See below. Semipostal stamps see above may be used to raise funds for causes.
As noted earlier in this report, however, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform long has had a rule against considering legislation that proposes the issuance of new semipostal and commemorative stamps. Customized postage also may be used for this purpose.
Stamps are produced by the USPS alone and may not carry images, messages, or advertisements promoting political causes, private businesses, etc. However, persons, groups, and businesses may put images, messages, and advertisements on certain forms of postage, such as customized postage and postage meter indicia.
CSAC assesses proposals for new commemorative stamps against 12 criteria and advises the Postmaster General, who has final authority to determine both subject matter and design, on appropriate and desirable proposals. The CSAC advises that new stamp proposals be submitted "at least three years in advance of the proposed date of issue to allow sufficient time for consideration and for design and production. Consumers also may call the USPS at This began a quasi-judicial process in which all interested parties, including citizens and business firms, would submit testimony to the commission concerning USPS's proposed postage rates.
The Postal Rate Commission would hold hearings, take testimony from witnesses, and issue a recommended decision, which the USPS's Board of Governors could accept or reject. Frequently, the entire process took more than six months, and the results were difficult to predict. The PAEA replaced this process with a less adversarial and more expeditious process that takes less than two months Stat. Now, when the USPS wants to raise postage rates, it files a notice with the PRC, which takes public comments and verifies the proposed rates' compliance with the law.
Market-dominant products are those that the USPS need not compete with the private sector to provide.
0コメント