FACTS
In 1957, the Municipality of Jagna enacted Ordinance No. 4, which imposed storage fees on all exportable copra deposited in the bodega within the jurisdiction of the Municipality of Jagna in Bohol. Procter & Gamble – a manufacturer of soap, edible oil, margarine, and other similar products, and for this purpose maintained a “bodega” in the municipality where it stored copra purchased in the municipality and therefrom shipped the same for its manufacturing and other operations – challenged the validity of the Ordinance.
Paying under protest from 1958 to 1963, P&G alleged that the exaction constituted double taxation and was ultra vires for being beyond the power of the municipality to enact.
In its ruling, the CFI upheld the municipality’s power based on general welfare clause (Sec. 2238) of the old Administrative Code and said that P&G’s cause of action had already prescribed.
RULING
The Court ruled in favor of the Municipality of Jagna.
By P&G’s own admission, it is a consolidated corporation with its trading company, which means it will be hard to segregate the copra it uses for trading from that it utilizes for manufacturing.
For double taxation to exist, the same property must be taxed twice, when it should be taxed but once.
Double taxation has also been defined as taxing the same person twice by the same jurisdiction for the same thing. Surely, a tax on P&G’s products is different from a tax on the privilege of storing copra in a bodega situated within the territorial boundary of the municipality.
