"Section 255. Tax on insurance premiums. — There shall be collected from every person, company, or corporation (except purely cooperative companies or associations) doing insurance business of any sort in the Philippines a tax of one per centum of the total premiums collected during the first ten years of his or its organization or establishment, irrespective of the place thereof and one and one-half per centum of the total premiums collected thereafter, whether such premiums are paid in money, notes, credits, or any substitute for money, but premiums refunded within six months after payment on account of rejection of risk or returned for other reason to person insured shall not be included in the taxable receipts; nor shall any tax be paid upon reinsurance by a company that has already paid the tax; nor upon premiums collected or received by any branch of a domestic corporation, firm or association doing business outside the Philippines on account of any life insurance of the insured who is a non-resident, if any percentage tax on such premiums is imposed by the foreign country where the branch is established.

"'Cooperative companies or associations,' are such as are conducted by the members thereof with money collected from among themselves and solely for their own protection and not for profit."

Section 2. This Act shall take effect as of January first, nineteen hundred and forty.