Court Opinion

ID: 9692463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:54:54.019832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:34.657991
License: Public Domain

ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). I would hold that the sale of the gold alloy to the dentist is a sale at retail but that the gross receipts from the sale are exempt from taxation as a medicine.
The distinguishing characteristic of a retail sales tax is that the tax applies to sales to the consumer of goods, not to an intermediary who resells the goods or who processes the goods for resale. As I view the transaction in this case, the sale of the alloy to the dentist is the last transfer of the alloy as tangible personal property and *54is a sale for use or consumption by the dentist within the meaning of the statute. Although the sale/service dichotomy is a troublesome one, for purposes of this law, I believe the dentist is engaged in rendering services to his or her patient, not in making sales of alloy or of fillings, bridges, etc. Under current practice, the patient seeks and obtains professional care and treatment. There is a fee to the patient for services rendered, not for the cost of a filling, bridge or plate. The community or customary attitude toward or appraisal of the transaction between dentist and patient is that of a service transaction not a sale.1 The practice of dentistry need not be conducted in this manner, but it presently is.
Upon consideration of both the legislative purpose of the statute2 and the effective and efficient administration of the tax,3 I agree with the Department of Revenue’s view that the sale to the dentist is the proper transaction upon which to impose the sales tax. Nevertheless, I would hold that no tax is incurred in the transaction in question. Sec. 77.54(14), Stats., exempts the gross receipts from the sales of “medicines” to a dentist for the treatment of a human being. Sec. 77.51(21), Stats., defines medicines as
“. . . any substance or preparation intended for use by external or internal application to the human body in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease and which is commonly recognized as a substance or preparation intended for such use; but ‘medicines’ do not include:
“(a) Any auditory, prosthetic, ophthalmic or ocular device ,or appliance.
*55“(b) Articles which are in the nature, of splints, bandages, pads, compresses, supports, dressings, instruments, apparatus, contrivances, appliances, devices or other mechanical, electronic, optical or physical equipment or article or the component parts or accessories thereof.
“(c) Any alcoholic beverage the manufacture, sale, purchase, possession or transportation of which is licensed or regulated under the laws of this state.”
I would hold that the sale of alloy is exempt as a sale of medicine. Gold alloy sold to a dentist is a substance intended for use by external or internal application to the human body in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease. In my view, the dictionary definition of disease is broad enough to cover mouth disorders which are corrected by the use of dental gold alloy. Gold alloy is not in and of itself a prosthetic (as the Department of Revenue contends) and therefore is not excluded from the above quoted statutory definition of medicine. If alloy were considered a prosthetic then I believe it would be exempt from tax under sec. 77.54 (22), Stats.

 See Hellerstein, The Scope of the Taxable Sale Under Sales and Use Tax Act: Sales as Distinguished from Services, 11 Tax L. Rev. 261, 267-288 (1956).

 Davis, The Purposive Approach to the Interpretation of Sales Tax Statutes, 27 Ohio St. J. J. 429 (1966).

 Cf. Western Leather & Finding Co. v. State Tax Commn., 87 Utah 227, 48 P.2d 526 (1935) (Wolfe, J. concurring opinion).