For the purpose of this Chapter except as otherwise specifically provided, the following words and phrases, together with all of the common derivatives thereof (i.e., verbs, plurals, feminine gender, etc.), shall have the meaning ascribed to them in this Section.

(a) Business and engaging in, transacting, conducting, continuing, doing or carrying on business includes all activities, whether personal, professional or corporate, carried on within Guam for economic benefit, either direct or indirect, but shall not include casual sales. Engaging in business shall also include the exercise of corporate franchise powers, but neither the conduct of business as such within or without Guam by an investment company or by an international finance company, as each or either is defined in any law of the United States or Guam, or by any company registered as an investment company under the United States Investment Company Act of 1940 nor the exercise of corporate franchise powers by any such corporation, shall constitute either business or engaging in business to the extent that such conduct or exercise within Guam does not exceed the management and administration of its business and activities incidental thereto, transactions involving its capitalization, and the acquisition and disposition of property from which any income would constitute foreign source income pursuant to the provisions of the Guam Income Tax Law.

Without excluding other activities which may not be considered to be specifically engaging in, transacting, conducting, continuing, doing or carrying on a business, including those activities specified above, a person shall not be considered to be engaging in, transacting, conducting, continuing, doing or carrying on a business within the meaning of this Division solely by reason of carrying on in Guam any one (1) or more of the following activities:

(1) maintaining or defending any action or suit, or any administrative or arbitration proceeding, or

effecting the settlement thereof or the settlement of claims or disputes;

(2) holding meetings of the board of directors or shareholders, or carrying on other activities concerning internal corporate affairs;

(3) maintaining bank accounts;

(4) maintaining offices or agencies for the transfer, exchange and registration of the corporation’s own securities, or appointing and maintaining trustees or depositaries with respect to those securities;

(5) effecting sales through independent contractors;

(6) soliciting or procuring orders, whether by mail or through employees, agents or otherwise, where those orders require acceptance outside Guam before they become binding contracts;

(7) creating or acquiring evidences of debt or mortgages, liens, or security interests in real or personal property;

(8) securing or collecting one’s own debts or enforcing mortgages and security interests in property securing one’s own debts;

(9) owning, without more, real or personal property;

(10) conducting an isolated transaction that is completed within ninety (90) days and that is not one in the course of a number of repeated transactions of a like nature; and

(11) transacting business in interstate commerce. The list of activities in this Subsection is not exhaustive.
(b) Primary Contractor shall include every person engaging in the business of contracting to erect, construct, repair or improve any installation of any kind or description, or to provide under contract any service or material for the
erection, construction, repair or improvement of any installation, or to provide under contract, labor to another for any purpose or use whatsoever, including any other services or products that the project may require.

(1) Subcontractor shall include every person engaging in the business of providing labor, products, or services to a Primary Contractor for a specific project.

(c) Drawback shall mean a return to the taxpayer of all or a portion of a tax which he has already paid.

(d) Export Trading Company shall mean a person, partnership, association, or similar organization, whether operated for profit or as a nonprofit organization, which does business under the laws of Guam and which is organized and operated principally for purposes of

(1) exporting goods or services produced in Guam;
or

(2) facilitating the exportation of goods or services
produced in the United States or Guam by unaffiliated persons by providing one or more export trade services;

An export Trading Company must qualify under United States Public Law 97-290 and conform to the requirements and procedures of that Act regarding Export Trading Companies.

(e) Export Trade Service shall mean, but be not limited to, consulting, international market research, advertising, marketing, insurance, product research and design, legal assistance, transportation, including trade documentation and freight forwarding, communication and procession of foreign orders to and for exporters and foreign purchasers, warehousing, foreign exchange, financing, and taking title to goods, when provided in order to facilitate and export of goods or services produced in the United States or Guam.

(f) Foreign shall mean that which is outside of Guam;
and domestic shall mean that which is legally within Guam.

(g) Gross Income or Gross Proceeds of Sale shall mean the total receipts, cash or accrued, of the taxpayer received as compensation from whatever activity; such terms shall refer to, and shall include, that received by reason of the investment of the capital of the business engaged in including interest, discount, rentals, royalties, fees, commissions, or other emoluments, however designated, and without any deductions whatsoever, except that actual bad debts may be excluded in the period in which they accrued.

These terms shall not be construed to include the receipts from the sale of bonds or other evidence of indebtedness, stocks, or from sale of real property nor shall there be included therein cash discounts allowed and taken on sales, the proceeds of sales when the article is returned by the customer and the sale price refunded to him.

(h) Import shall mean and include bringing into Guam from any source outside of Guam any tangible personal property whatsoever, as well as the property itself.

(i) Manufacturer shall mean and include any person engaged in the business of applying labor, by hand or with the aid of machinery, to raw materials or to partially processed materials so as to result in a substantial transformation of such material into a form capable of use different from that to which it could be put before such substantial transformation.

(j) Obligation to the government of Guam shall mean and include any and all taxes, charges, debt, or anything owed to the government of Guam which at the time is due and delinquent.

(k) Person includes any individual, firm, co-partnership, joint venture, association, corporation, estate, trust, limited liability company, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, or any other group or combination, foreign or domestic, acting as a unit.

(l) Practice of a profession shall mean the rendering of a professional service depending on the skill or art of the

individual so rendering it, exclusive of the sale of tangible property.

(m) Producer shall mean and include any person engaged in the business of growing or extracting natural resource products in their natural state.

(n) Resident shall include any person within Guam with the intent of making this his fixed place of abode or business for the present.

(o) Retail shall mean the sale of tangible personal property, other than by a wholesaler as such within the definition of this Section, for consumption or use by the purchaser and not for resale.

(p) Sale means any transfer of title or possession, or both, conditional or otherwise, in any manner or by any means whatsoever, of tangible personal property and includes an exchange of properties as well as an exchange of property for money. A transaction whereby the possession of property is transferred but the seller retains title as security for the payment of the sale price on a conditional sale, shall be deemed a sale.

(q) Storage shall mean and include any keeping or retention in Guam for use or consumption in Guam, or for any purpose other than sale in the regular course of business.

(r) Tax Commissioner shall mean and include the person performing the duties of Commissioner of Revenue and Taxation for the government of Guam and who is charged with the administration and enforcement of the provisions of this Chapter.

(s) Taxpayer shall mean any person against whom a tax is levied, or who is liable for payment of any tax, or who is required to file a return under this Chapter whether such person owes a tax or not.

(t) Use shall mean and include the exercise of any right or power incident to the ownership of tangible property, or interest therein, except that it shall not include the keeping for sale of such property in the regular course of business.
(u) Value shall mean the fair and reasonable cash value in Guam.

(v) Vessels engaged in commercial fishing shall mean those vessels solely employed in the activity of catching fish for commercial sale and those vessels used to support such vessels such as provisioning vessels and tanker vessels.

(w) Wholesale shall mean the sale of tangible personal property by a person doing a regularly organized wholesale business, known to the trade as such, and licensed to do business as such, to a person for the purpose of resale.

SOURCE: GC § 19500. Subsection (a) amended by P.L. 16-065; Subsections (d) and (e) added by P.L. 17-067:1 & 2; subsection (v) added by P.L. 18-002:6; Subsection (v) amended by P.L. 24-205:9; Subsections (a) and (k) amended by P.L. 27-057:3 and 4, respectively. Subsection (b) amended by P.L. 33-194:2 (Dec. 15, 2016).

2017 NOTE: References in subsections (f) and (n) to “”territory”” removed pursuant to 1 Guam Code Ann. § 420.