Section 18
SEC. 18. Section one hundred of Act Numbered Twenty-three hundred and thirty-nine is hereby amended to read as follows: "SEC. 100. Privilege tax on signs, signboards, and billboards. "(a) Upon outdoor signs, signboards, and billboards erected, displayed, or maintained in any place exposed to public view shall be paid, by the person so erecting, displaying, or maintaining the same, a privilege tax, to be computed upon superficial area, as follows: "(1) Upon signs, signboards, and spaces regularly used for temporary signs on buildings used for business purposes, per square meter or fraction thereof, per annum, one peso; "(2) Upon billboards and upon all signs displayed on premises not occupied by buildings used for business purposes, per square meter or fraction thereof, per annum, two ; pesos. "(b) Signs and signboards having a total area of less than one square meter shall be taxed as of one meter. "(c) Signs or signboards announcing exclusively the name or style, address, and nature of business of a person shall not be subject to this tax if displayed on the premises in which the business of such person is carried on. "(d) When the tax is prepaid in full for the entire quarter following that in which the sign, signboard, or billboard is erected or displayed, the tax collected for the current quarter shall be prorated on the remaining portion of the current quarter. "(e) Removal of signs by the Government.—Any sign, signboard, or billboard which shall be erected, displayed, or maintained without the privilege tax thereon having been paid as hereinabove provided shall be removed by the Government at the owner's expense. "(f) Restrictive provisions.—No sign, signboard, or billboard shall be erected or displayed on public lands, premises, or buildings. If after due investigation and having given the owners an opportunity to be heard the Collector of Internal Revenue shall decide that any sign, signboard, or billboard displayed or exposed to public view is offensive to the sight or is otherwise a nuisance, he may order the removal of such sign, signboard, or billboard, and if same is not removed within ten days after he has issued such order he may himself cause its removal, and the sign, signboard, or billboard shall thereupon be forfeited to the Government, and the expenses incident to the removal of the same shall become a lawful charge against any person or property liable for the privilege tax thereon. "When a sign, signboard, or billboard removed as herein contemplated shall be found not to conform with the requirements of the regulations of the Bureau relative to signs, signboards, and billboards, no refund shall be allowed for any portion of the year for which the taxes may have been paid; otherwise, the Collector of Internal Revenue may in his discretion make a refund of so much of the annual tax paid as corresponds to the remaining portion of the year. An appeal to the Secretary of Finance and Justice may be taken from any order of removal made by the Collector of Internal Revenue in pursuance of this section, and the decision of said Secretary thereon shall be final."