SECTION 31. DEFINITION OF TERMS. When used in this Code, the term:

a. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCT includes the yield of the soil, such as corn, rice, wheat, rye, hay, coconuts, sugarcane, tobacco, root crops, vegetable, fruits, flowers, and their by-products; ordinary salt; all kinds of fish; poultry; and livestock, and animal products, whether in their original form or not.

b. AMUSEMENT is pleasurable diversion and entertainment. It is synonymous to relaxation, avocation, pastime, or fun;

c. AMUSEMENT PLACES include theaters, cinemas, concert halls, circuses and other places of amusement where one seeks admission to entertain oneself by seeing or viewing the show or performances;

d. BUSINESS means trade or commercial activity regularly engaged in as a means of livelihood or with a view to profit;

e. BANKS AND OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS include non-bank financial intermediaries, lending investors, finance and investment companies, pawnshops, money shops, insurance companies, stock markets, stock brokers and dealers in securities and foreign exchange, as defined under applicable law, or rules and regulations thereunder;

f. CAPITAL INVESTMENT is the capital which a person employs in any undertaking, or which he contributes to the capital of a partnership, corporation, or any other juridical entity or association in a particular taxing jurisdiction;

g. CHARGES refer to pecuniary liability, as rents or fees against persons or property;

h. CONTRACTOR includes persons, natural or juridical, not subject to professional tax under Section 41 of this Code, whose activity consists essentially of the sale of all kinds of services for a fee, regardless of whether or not the performance of the service calls for the exercise or use of the physical or mental faculties of such contractor or his employees. As used in this Section, the term "contractor" shall include general engineering, general building and specialty contractors as defined under applicable laws; filling, demolition and salvage works contractors; proprietors or operators of mine drilling apparatus; proprietors or operators of dockyards; persons engaged in the installation of water system, and gas or electric light, heat, or power; proprietors or operators of smelting plants; engraving, plating, and plastic lamination establishments; proprietors or operators of establishments for repairing, repainting, upholstering, washing or greasing of vehicles, heavy equipment, vulcanizing, recapping and battery charging; proprietors or operators of furniture shops and establishments for planing or surfacing and recutting of lumber, and sawmills under contract to saw or cut logs belonging to others; proprietors or operators of dry-cleaning or dyeing establishments, steam laundries, and laundries using washing machines; proprietors or owners of shops for the repair of any kind of mechanical and electrical devices, instruments, apparatus, or furniture and shoe repairing by machine or any mechanical contrivance; proprietors or operators of establishments or lots for parking purposes; proprietors or operators of tailor shops, dress shops, milliners and hatters, beauty parlors, barbershops, massage clinics, sauna, Turkish and Swedish baths, slenderizing and body building saloons and similar establishments; photographic studios; funeral parlors; proprietors or operators of hotels, motels, and lodging houses; proprietors or operators of arrastre and stevedoring, warehousing, or forwarding establishments; master plumbers, smiths, and house or sign painters; printers, bookbinders, lithographers; publishers except those engaged in the publication or printing of any newspapers, magazine, review or bulletin which appears at regular intervals with fixed prices for subscription and sale and which is not devoted principally to the publication of advertisements; business agents, private detective or watchman agencies, commercial and immigration brokers, and cinematographic film owners, lessors and distributors.

i. CORPORATION includes partnerships, no matter how created or organized, joint-stock companies, joint accounts (cuentas en participacion), associations or insurance companies but does not include general professional partnerships and a joint venture or consortium formed for the purpose of undertaking construction projects or engaging in petroleum, coal, geothermal, and other energy operations pursuant to an operating or consortium agreement under a service contract with the government. General professional partnerships are partnerships formed by persons for the sole purpose of exercising their common profession, no part of the income of which is derived from engaging in any trade or business.

j. COUNTRYSIDE AND BARANGAY BUSINESS ENTERPRISE refers to any business entity, association, or cooperative registered under the provisions of Republic Act No. Sixty-eight hundred ten (R.A. No. 6810), otherwise known as "Magna Carta for Countryside and Barangay Business Enterprises" (Kalakalan 20).

k. DEALER means one whose business is to buy and sell merchandise, goods, and chattels as a merchant. He stands immediately between the producer or manufacturer and the consumer and depends for his profit not upon the labor he bestows upon his commodities but upon the skill and foresight with which he watches the market.

l. FEE means a charge fixed by law or ordinance for the regulation or inspection of a business or activity;

m. FRANCHISE is a right or privilege, affected with public interest which is conferred upon private persons or corporations, under such terms and conditions as the government and its political subdivisions may impose in the interest of public welfare, security, and safety;

n. GROSS SALES OR RECEIPTS include the total amount of money or its equivalent representing the contract price, compensation or service fee, including the amount charged or materials supplied with the services and deposits or advance payments actually or constructively received during the taxable quarter for the services performed or to be performed for another person excluding discounts if determinable at the time of sale, sales return, excise tax, and value-added tax (VAT);

o. MANUFACTURER includes every person who, by physical or chemical process, alters the exterior texture or form or inner substance of any raw material or manufactured or partially manufactured product in such manner as to prepare it for special use or uses to which it could not have been put in its original condition, or who by any such process, alters the quality of any such raw material or manufactured or partially manufactured products so as to reduce it to marketable shape or prepare it for any of the use of industry, or who by any such process, combines any such raw material or manufactured or partially manufactured products with other materials or products of the same or of different kinds and in such manner that the finished products of such process or manufacture can be put to a special use or uses to which such raw material or manufactured or partially manufactured products in their original condition could not have been put, and who in addition, alters such raw material or manufactured or partially manufactured products, or combines the same to produce such finished products for the purpose of their sale or distribution to others and not for his own use or consumption;

p. ARGINAL FARMER OR FISHERMAN refers to an individual engaged in subsistence farming or fishing which shall be limited to the sale, barter or exchange of agricultural or marine products produced by himself and his immediate family;

q. MOTOR VEHICLE means any vehicle propelled by any power other than muscular power using the public roads, but excluding road rollers, trolley cars, street-sweepers, sprinklers, lawn mowers, bulldozers, graders, forklifts, amphibian trucks, and cranes if not used on public roads, vehicles which run only on rails or tracks, and tractors, trailers, and traction engines of all kinds used exclusively for agricultural purposes;

r. MUNICIPAL WATERS include not only streams, lakes, and tidal waters within the city not being the subject of private ownership and not comprised within the national parks, public forest, timber lands, forest reserves or fishery reserves, but also marine waters included between two lines drawn perpendicularly to the general coastline from points where boundary lines of the municipality or city touch the sea at low tide and a third line parallel with the general coastline and fifteen (15) kilometers from it. Where two (2) municipalities are so situated on the opposite shores that there is less than fifteen (15) kilometers of marine waters between them, the third line shall be equally distant from opposite shores of the respective municipalities;

s. OPERATOR includes the owner, manager, administrator, or any other person who operates or is responsible for the operation of a business establishment or undertaking;

t. PEDDLER means any person who, either for himself or on commission, travels from place to place and sells his goods or offers to sell and deliver the same. Whether a peddler is a wholesale peddler or a retail peddler of a particular commodity shall be determined from the definition of wholesale dealer or retail dealer as provided in this Title;

u. PERSONS mean every natural or juridical being, susceptible of rights and obligations or being the subject of legal relations;

v. RESIDENTS refer to natural persons who have their habitual residence in the province, city, or municipality where they exercise their civil rights and fulfill their civil obligations, and to juridical persons for which the law or any other provision creating or recognizing them fixes their residence in a particular province, city or municipality. In the absence of such law juridical persons are residents of the province, city or municipality where they have their legal residence or principal place of business or where they conduct their principal business or occupation;

w. RETAIL means a sale where the purchaser buys the commodity for his own consumption, irrespective of the quantity of the commodity sold;

x. VESSEL includes every type of boat, craft, or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water;

y. WHARFAGE means a fee assessed against the cargo of a vessel engaged in foreign or domestic trade based on quantity, weight, or measure received and/or discharged by vessel; and

z. WHOLESALE means a sale where the purchaser buys the commodities for resale to persons other than the end user regardless of the quantity of the transaction.