BIR Ruling No. 073-63

October 9, 1963 BIR RULING NO. 073-63 Dr. Rogelio S. Alcantara Manager, Manila Dental Laboratory 307 Garcia Bldg., Manila S i r : Reference is made to your letter dated September 4, 1963, requesting information as to the taxes due on the amounts received by you from dental practitioners as payment for the artificial restorations made by you in accordance with the prescriptions together with the impressions (cast) submitted to you by those practitioners. In connection therewith, you have called the attention of this office to a previous ruling issued in 1954, which considered artificial restorations made in accordance with prescriptions submitted by other dental practitioners as not coming within the purview of Sections 191 of the Tax Code. In reply thereto, please be informed that a person practices dentistry if he performs any operation or part of an operation upon the human mouth, or treats oral diseases or lesions or corrects mal-positions of the teeth. It does not embrace artisans engaged in the mechanical construction of artificial dentures or other oral devices, so long as none of such procedures is done inside the mouth of the patient. (Sec. 12, R.A. No. 417) Such being the case, you fall under the term "other independent contractors" mentioned in Section 191 of the Tax Code. An independent contractor has been defined as a person who, in the pursuit of an independent business, undertakes to do a specific piece of job or work for other persons , using his own means and methods without submitting himself to control as to the petty details." (Luaon Stevedoring Co. vs. Trinidad, 43 Phil. 904; emphasis supplied) You are therefore, subject to the fixed and percentage taxes prescribed by Sections 182(A)(1) and 191, both of the National Internal Revenue Code. If the materials are supplied by the practitioners, only the compensation paid to you for making the artificial restorations shall be reported for purposes of the 3% tax prescribed by Section 191 of the Tax Code. cdtech Very truly yours, (SGD.) RAMON T. OBEN Acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue