Unreadable Weights and Measures (balances, steelyards, meter sticks)

June 11, 1959 BIR RULING NO. 293-59 Mr. A. Yapchapco Chief, Weights & Measures Section Office of the Treasurer M a n i l a S i r : Reference is made to your letter of the 4th instant, requesting opinion on the following: cdt "(a) Weights and measures (balances, steelyards, meter sticks) that are unreadable and which can defraud the public consumers because the seller or owner of the instruments can manage to profit in any manner that they like. Let us take for granted that we buy ten yards of cloth. One yard is composed of 91.44 centimeters. If the graduation or numeration of the weights and measures is unreadable and beyond recognition, then the merchants or vendors can manage to place it at random which will directly cheat the public consumers especially in the public and private markets, etc. Is this not a violation of section 289 of the National Internal Revenue Code?" In answer thereto, I have the honor to inform you that the mere fact that an instrument of weight or measure is so deteriorated as to render the numerals and graduations thereof hardly discernable does not of itself constitute a violation of section 289, 2nd paragraph, of the Tax Code. However, to fall within the purview of said law, it is enough that a person fraudulently gives short weight or measure in the making of a sale. At any rate, the license of any such instrument of weight or measure should not have been renewed. If any such instrument is used without the license having been previously renewed, then the user thereof becomes liable to the penal provisions of section 288 of the Tax Code. In this connection, it may be stated that, pursuant to section 288 of the same Code, any defective instrument of weight or measure may be destroyed by any inspector or sealer of weights and measures if its defect is such that it cannot readily and securely be repaired. Moreover, only weights and measures of the metric system can be sealed and licensed, except in the purchase and sale of manufactured lumber where the English system of measures may be employed, and in ordering commodities or articles from abroad where such weights and measures may be employed as are commonly used in the country to which the order is sent or from which the goods are shipped. (See: Sec. 33, Rev. Adm. Code & Sec. 276, Tax Code) cdll Very truly yours, (SGD.) JOSE ARAAS Commissioner of Internal Revenue