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CASE NAME
Gomez vs. Palomar

TOPIC Taxation

Case No. / Date G.R. No. L-23645      October 29, 1968

Ponente Castro, J.

Doctrine Legislature has the inherent power to select the subjects of taxation and to
grant exemptions

Relevant Facts:

 Republic Act 1635,as amended by Republic Act 2631,otherwise known as Anti Tb Stamp Law was
passed. For the purpose of raising funds for the Philippine Tuberculosis Society, charging extra five
centavos for the use of semi- postal stamp.
 On September l5, 1963 the petitioner Benjamin P. Gomez mailed a letter at the post office in San
Fernando, Pampanga. Because this letter, addressed to a certain Agustin Aquino of 1014 Dagohoy
Street, Singalong, Manila did not bear the special anti-TB stamp required by the statute, it was
returned to the petitioner.
 Petitioner assails the constitutionality of the statue claiming that RA 1635 is violative of the equal
protection clause because it constitutes mail users into a class for taxation purposes while the rest of
the population (non-mail user) is left untaxed.

ISSUE WON RA 1635 is unconstitutional for being violative of the equal protection clause?

RULING  No, the legislature has the inherent power to select the subjects of taxation
and to grant exemptions. This power has aptly been described as "of
wide range and flexibility."
 It is said that in the field of taxation, more than in other areas, the
legislature possesses the greatest freedom in classification. Because
classification has been a device to achieve an equitable distribution of tax
burden.
 Tax exemptions has never been thought of raising revenues under the
equal protection clause/
 In the case of the anti-TB stamp, legislature selected mail users as subjects of
the tax because of relative ease and convenience of collecting the tax through
 USA College of Law

1F-Duazo

the post offices.

 Moreover, the eradication of a dreaded disease is a public purpose
and taxpayer can derive benefit from his enjoyment of the privileges of
living in an organized society, established and safeguarded by the
devotion of taxes to public purposes.