*308OPINION
By the Court,
Appellant is a Utah corporation licensed to do business in the State of Nevada as a foreign corporation. After performing two contracts, the first between appellant and the United States Atomic Energy Commission, hereinafter referred to as AEC, and the second between appellant and H. Halvorsen, Inc., a prime contractor with AEC, appellant paid sales taxes to the State of *309Nevada which appellant later claimed were paid erroneously and sought refund of the amounts paid. NRS 372.680.1
The trial court sustained a motion to dismiss without leave to further amend the appellant’s amended complaint, first because it contained an allegation which did not appear specifically in the claim (NRS 372.645), and second, that the appellant was the purchaser of the materials, that the materials were parts of permanent improvements affixed to the realty, that the United States Government was not the entity taxed (thus violating its immunity) and, therefore, the appellant was by law liable for the taxes.
The first contract between appellant and AEC required appellant to install an air storage system in one of the projects at the Nevada Test Site. In the second agreement appellant agreed to “furnish all labor, material and equipment, required to do all plumbing, heating and ventilating, air-conditioning, process-piping, sewerage and sewerage systems, installation of applicable government furnished equipment and testing of air piping complete in accordance with plans and specifications. * * *”
After paying the sales tax, appellant seeking to comply with NRS 372.645 wrote the Nevada State Tax Commission for a refund stating that the taxes had been paid on the basis of an erroneous interpretation of Tax Commission Ruling 52 and that the sales tax had been paid on certain items of machinery, equipment and fixtures that had been sold for resale.
The Tax Commission rejected the claim and appellant *310brought suit, setting forth compliance with statutory procedural requirements and further alleging the furnishing and installing of items of personalty in the performance of the two contracts. It adds, which respondent contends is not part of the claim for refund, that the “majority of said equipment was installed for the performance of a function of the purchaser not essential to the utilization of the land itself.”
We do not agree that appellant’s claim for refund did not meet the requirements of NRS 372.645. That section provides, “Every claim (for refund) shall be in writing and shall state the specific grounds upon which the claim is founded.”
Although not couched in the language of the technical niceties normally set forth in complaints or petitions before a court of law, where the facts constituting the claim encompass the same basic dispute, substantial compliance with the statute requiring the filing of a claim is sufficient.2 Cf. City of Reno v. Fields, 69 Nev. *311300, 250 P.2d 140 (involving a claim against a municipality arising out of tort).
The purpose of the statute requiring the filing of a claim as a predicate to the commencement of suit against a government agency is to enable the agency to investigate the claim and the claimant while the occurrence is recent and the evidence available to the end that it may protect itself against spurious and unjust claims. Thus, when the claim substantially complies with the legislative requirements, these ends are subserved. See Frasier v. Cowlitz County, 67 Wash. 312, 121 P. 459 (1912).
Appellant further contends that Ruling 52 of the Nevada Tax Commission makes certain specific items constituting machinery and equipment exempt from sales tax.3 Respondent argues that the items are “materials” and subject to the taxes. Whether or not the air storage system and the other items that went into the completed units are materials, thus taxable, or machine and equipment which can or cannot be removed without damage to the realty are fact issues to be resolved by evidence.
*312As before noted, the amended complaint alleged that the “majority of said equipment was installed for the performance of a function of the purchaser not essential to the utilization of the land itself.” Though not artfully stated, we take the quoted language to express the plaintiff’s view that the items involved were machinery and equipment and not therefore subject to tax within the intendment of Tax Commission Ruling 52. If true, a claim for relief was stated. Of course we must, for the purposes of a Rule 12 (b) (5) motion, accept the charge of the complaint as true. Professional & Business Men’s Life Ins. Co. v. Bankers Life Co., D.C. Mont. (1958), 163 F.Supp. 274.
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Thompson and Badt, JJ., concur.