Reclassification of an American Brand Filter Tip Cigarette

October 15, 1958 BIR RULING NO. 566-58 La Suerte Cigar & Cigarette Factory 165 Dolores St., Pasay City Gentlemen : With reference to your letter dated September 22, 1958, requesting, for the reasons stated therein, the reclassification of an American brand filter tip cigarette which you intend to produce locally from the P24.00 class to the P12.00 class, I regret to inform you that your request cannot be granted for lack of legal basis. The filter of cigarettes is part and parcel thereof. From the viewpoint of smokers, it is the main feature, or at least, one of the principal features of and what distinguishes said cigarettes from many though not all other cigarettes. It is one of the major devises resorted to induce the smoking public to buy the same in preference to other cigarettes. In fact, it cannot be separated or detached from the portion containing the cigarettes paper that wraps the two portions and keeps the same together as a single, whole cigarette. Moreover, as long as the law does not distinguish between filter cigarettes and non-filter cigarettes and Section 137 of the Tax Code does not do so, neither the executive department nor the courts may distinguish the one from the other, for purposes of taxation. Accordingly, in determining the length and/or weight of the cigarettes in question, for the purpose of fixing the specific tax due thereon under said Section 137, the two portions thereof, that is, the portion containing tobacco and the other without any tobacco, which is the filter, should be considered together. (Ligget & Myers Tobacco Co. vs. Collector, G.R. No. L-9415, April 22, 1957.) LexLib Very truly yours, (SGD.) MELECIO R. DOMINGO Acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue