MINDANAO BUS COMPANY v. THE CITY ASSESSOR & TREASURER and the BOARD OF TAX APPEALS of Cagayan de Oro City
G.R. No. L-17870 September 29, 1962
FACTS:
Petitioner is a public utility solely engaged in transporting passengers and cargoes by motor trucks. It owns a land where it maintains and operates a garage for its TPU motor trucks; a repair shop; blacksmith and carpentry shops, and with machineries placed therein, its TPU trucks are made; body constructed; and same are repaired in a condition to be serviceable in the TPU land transportation business it operates.
The machineries have never been or were never used as industrial equipment to produce finished products for sale, nor to repair machineries, parts and the like offered to the general public indiscriminately for business or commercial purposes.
Respondent City Assessor of Cagayan de Oro City assessed at P4,400 petitioner's above-mentioned equipment. Petitioner appealed the assessment to the respondent Board of Tax Appeals on the ground that the same are not realty. The Board of Tax Appeals of the City sustained the city assessor, so petitioner herein filed with the Court of Tax Appeals a petition for the review of the assessment.
The CTA held the petitioner liable to the payment of the realty tax on its maintenance and repair equipment mentioned above. Hence, this petition.
ISSUE:
Should the tools and equipment in the petitioner company’s repair shop be considered immovable taxable real properties?
DOCTRINE:
NO. Movable equipment to be immobilized in contemplation of the law must first be "essential and principal elements" of an industry or works without which such industry or works would be "unable to function or carry on the industrial purpose for which it was established." The tools and equipment are not essential and principle municipal elements of petitioner's business of transporting passengers and cargoes by motor trucks. They are merely incidentals — acquired as movables and used only for expediency to facilitate and/or improve its service. The transportation business could be carried on without the repair or service shop if its rolling equipment is repaired or serviced in another shop belonging to another.