BIR Ruling

March 7, 1969 Mr. Pedro E. Teodoro Chairman of the Board Alta Vista Restaurant & Supper Club Roxas Boulevard, Manila S i r : This refers to your letter of February 28, 1969, requesting an official opinion as to whether Alta Vista Restaurant and Supper Club may be classified as a restaurant or a night club for internal revenue purposes. It is represented that the Alta Vista Restaurant and Supper Club is a family rendezvous offering family buffet luncheon at noon time and family buffet dinner in the evening; that the supper club employs a seven-man combo with two regular singers for the entertainment of the customers and patrons; and that hostesses are not employed thereat. In reply, I have the honor to inform you that under the given set-up, the Alta Vista is a restaurant and a night club. As a family rendezvous offering family buffet luncheon at noon, it is restaurant subject to the 3% and/or 7% tax under Section 191 of the Tax Code. For operating a supper club in the evening wherein music is being furnished by a seven-man combo with regular singers and the customers allowed to dance to the temp of the music thus furnished, Alta Vista is constituted a night club, subject to the 10% amusement tax in accordance with Section 260 of the Tax Code. Under Section 2(n) of Revenue Regulations No. V-57, the Revised Amusement Tax Regulations, night clubs resort places frequented by pleasure seekers at night where food, wines, and drinks are served and music furnished and the patrons allowed to dance with their own partners or professional hostesses furnished by such resorts. However, only receipts from six o'clock (6:00) in the evening are subject to the 10% tax. A separate set of sales invoices should be used for restaurant receipts, and another set bearing the words "nightclub" should be used for the night club receipts in order to effect proper accounting and segregation. Very truly yours, (SGD.) MISAEL P. VERA Commissioner of Internal Revenue