Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 4287 August 18, 1908
THE PHILIPPINE PRODUCTS COMPANY, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
THE COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS, defendant-appellant.
Attorney-General Araneta for appellant.
Haussermann, Cohn and Williams for appellee.
WILLIARD, J.:
Paragraph 245 of the Tariff Law, as amended by the Act of Congress of March 3, 1905, is as follows:
Agricultural machinery and apparatus, machinery and apparatus for pile driving, dredging, hoisting, and making or repairing roads, for refrigerating and ice making, sawmill machinery, machinery and apparatus for extracting vegetable oils and for converting the same into other products, for making sugar for preparing rice, hemp, and other vegetable products of the Islands for the markets, and detached parts therefor, also traction and portable engines and their boilers adopted to and imported for and with rice-threshing machines, and steam plows, five per centum ad valorem.
NOTE. — The expression "preparing vegetable for the markets," shall be taken to mean putting said products and their first marketable condition.
After that law went into effect, the plaintiff bought in America steel tanks to be used in its oil mill in Manila. As we understand the evidence, eight of these tanks were imported ready for use. Other tanks were so large that, if put together in America, they could not be placed in the hold of the vessel. For that reason the parts were sent over here and they were put together after their arrival. All of the material so imported was, upon its arrival, placed in the mill of the plaintiff, and has since been, and is now being used therein, and all of it constitutes, unnecessary part of the complete oil mill.
When the property was imported, the importers' declaration stated that it was an additional shipment of apparatus necessary for the extraction of coconut oil and putting it in first marketable condition. The collector, however, assessed the tanks that were already set up and the tanks came in pieces under other paragraphs of the Tariff Act and refuse to assess them under paragraph 245. The importer appealed to the Court of First Instance, which reversed the ruling of the collector, and order all the material, except six tubs of paint, to be assessed under paragraph 245. From this judgment the government has appealed.
The view which the collector took of the case is indicated by his ruling upon the fourth item, namely, the steel tanks already set up. He said:
These were properly classified under paragraph 58, and, while doubtless intended for use in an oil mill, are equally susceptible for use for a dozen other purposes. They, therefor, are not intrinsically oil-mill apparatus, nor does it even appear that the predominant use of the tanks of this sort is such as to bring them under paragraph 245.
This same contention of the collector was discussed by this court in the case of Murphy, Morris and Co. vs. The United States (8 Phil, Rep., 479). It was there said:
The doctrine contended for by the collector of customs that the engine being separated from the threshing machine might be used for some other purpose, and therefore should be classified under a different head, in our opinion is not tenable.
That case is decisive of this case and the result is that the judgment of the Court of First Instance is affirmed, with the costs of this instance of the appellant. So ordered.
Arellano, C.J., Torres, Mapa, Carson and Tracey, JJ., concur.
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