Penalty Imposed on Merchants or Vendors Who Violate Sec. 33 (Revised Administrative Code)

April 23, 1958 BIR RULING NO. 245-58 The Chief Inspector Weights & Measures Office of the City Treasurer Manila S i r : Reference is made to your letter dated January 29, 1958, requesting information as to whether or not merchants or vendors who violate Section 33 of the Revised Administrative Code, in relation to the pertinent provisions of the National Internal Revenue Code, governing weights and measures, are liable to any punishment. You also wish to be informed what particular provision of law penalizes such violation. Pursuant to Section 33 of the Revised Administrative Code, only weights and measures of the metric system shall be officially sealed and licensed, except in the purchase and sale of manufactured lumber, where the use of the English system of measures is permissible, and in ordering commodities or articles from abroad, where the weights and measures commonly used in the country to which the order is sent or from which the goods are shipped may be employed. Accordingly, if the violation you are referring to consists in the use by the merchant or vendor of weights and measures other than those of the metric system, such violation would in effect consist in the use of weights and measures that have not been officially sealed and licensed, penalized under Section 288 of the Tax Code, unless the case falls under either of the two exceptions just mentioned. prcd Said Section 288 penalizes, among others, "any person who uses, in any purchase or sale or in estimating the value of any service furnished, any instrument of weights or measure that has not been officially sealed." Very truly yours, (SGD.) JOSE ARAAS Commissioner of Internal Revenue