1930s Mississippi Tax Commission Sales Tax Token, specifically a 1 Mill token

Purpose and History:
Fractional Cent Devices: These tokens were fractional cent devices, typically valued in "mills" (1 mill equals 1/10 of a cent), and were primarily used during the Great Depression by many American states, including Mississippi.
Addressing Sales Tax on Small items. Their main purpose was to facilitate the collection of sales tax on very small purchases, allowing consumers to pay the exact fractional cent amount of tax rather than being "overcharged" by rounding up to a full penny, which would have been significant for low-value transactions during that era.
IThey were issued by state governments, as well as private firms and municipalities, to provide a means for accurate sales tax collection when no equivalent federal coinage existed for fractional cents. Sales tax tokens were generally replaced by the "bracket system" of sales tax collection, which averaged out the tax on small sales, and most states eliminated their use by the end of the 1930s.